The dog show set clearly deserves mockery. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog proved that to us on Conan O'Brien's show. Now Christopher Guest, the reigning king of the mockumentary form, manages to give insight into the world of dog shows and deliver a hilarious film with "Best In Show".
Following up his earlier hilarious mock-documentary, "Waiting For Guffman", director Guest follows several groups preparing for and attending the Mayflower dog show in Philadelphia. "Guffman" vets Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, and Guest's "Spinal Tap" co-star Michael McKean are on hand for the fun. Guest himself appears as Harlan Pepper, a bloodhound owner who works in a South Carolina bait shop and knows and can name every type of nut there is.
And the nuts abound. "Best in Show" is, essentially, an improvised film, which gives it a certain amount of realism. But the actors are so good at what they do, and such skilled improvisational artists, that the result is hilarious. I am a member of a Memphis improvisational comedy group, Vertical Imbalance (www.vertical-imbalance.com), and I really appreciate the level these people have reached in their craft.
The characters are wonderful. Among the stand-outs are Posey and Michael Hitchcock are the perfect over the top yuppie couple with a depressed dog. McKean and John Michael Higgins are a homosexual couple with Shih Tzu. Higgins, who portrayed David Letterman in "The Late Shift" is hysterical as the dog's drama queen handler. Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, both SCTV alums, are astonishingly funny as a Florida couple who show their terrier. Levy is a dork with two left feet (literally), O'Hara is a woman who has had hundreds of boyfriends (literally), many of whom she runs into on the road to Mayflower (notably hilarious is Larry Miller). And Fred Willard does his thing as the jackass announcer at the show.
The jokes are funny. The timing is dead-on. And the targets are ripe for firing at. But apart from the laughs, Guest manages to do again what he did in "Guffman." He creates a setting filled with people whose greatest concern in life is really a fairly trivial show. And he, along with his talented cast, make this movie come alive.
"Best in Show" is absolutely hilarious. There are moments where I laughed so hard I had to catch my breath. But the jokes aren't just easy shots. They grow from the characters. It's really a marvelous piece of entertainment. Oh, it's no breakthrough piece of film history, but it is awfully good.
"Best in Show" certainly deserves a blue ribbon. On the Movie Report Card, I give "Best in Show" an A-.
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