Best In Show (2000). Cert 12. Director - Christopher Guest. Writers - Christopher Guest & Eugene Levy Starring - Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Parker
Posey & Michael
Hitchcock.
Premise - Best Of Show is a mockumentry based around the world of
pedigree dog shows. If it is anything like real life then there is some
grade A weirdo's going to these things. These people seem to treat their
dogs better than close family. Well, this was a bit of a let down. I was expecting something special
given the cast and the writer/director of Spinal Tap. There was several laugh out loud moments, but large portions of the
film fairly laugh free. Things did liven up when the show started. The
commentary duo provided more laughs than anyone else in the entire film
did. The colour commentator just had to open his mouth and I was in kinks.
One minute he’s talking about the dogs, then out of the blue he asks his
co-commentator how much he thinks he can bench press!
It is an
excellent cast though, Eugene Levy (who also co-wrote) is the stand out
for me. He plays the husband of Catherine O'Hara (Whom it appears has
slept with every man in the film) and is a man who has two left feet
(literally!). Strangely, the weakest character for me was the Bloodhound
owner played by writer/director Christopher Guest. He was just
uninteresting, I guess that was his shtick, but I was
unimpressed.
Also Parker Posey’s character was intensely
irritating. Like Guest the character was supposed to be like this, but it
left me cold, not wanting to laugh. The only other film I have seen her in
is Scream 3; she seemed to play the exact same character in that as well.
At the end of the day though it was too uneven with it’s laughs.
Although I can't rag on it too much, it did its job. I was suitably
entertained for the relatively short running time. Maybe my expectations
were too
high.
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6/10 for Best In show. Poster Quote - Most mediocre in show. |