The Grand (2007)

I love mockumentaries and parodies. I may not care for poker but I greatly enjoyed The Grand and its rags-to-riches poker tournament premise. As a Christopher Guest-style mockumentary, The Grand is more Waiting for Guffman than A Mighty Wind or Best in Show. It could have been funnier but its humor is embedded, laid-back, subtle, and contrarian -- more in The Office style of oh-no-he-didn't prickly or uncomfortable humor than spell-it-out-for-you belly-laugh humor. It's brainy humor (esp. Chris Parnell with his inside references to the sci-fi novel Dune) matched with dumbass humor (esp. Woody Harrelson as the drug-addled Vegas heir who tumbles into Wife No. 76). The ensemble cast stands out as a crowd-pleaser -- everyone has their moments to shine -- but I would rank them in the following order of prominence: Woody Harrelson (as the failed heir to a historic Vegas hotel he hopes to save), Cheryl Hines (as a loopy cardsharp who takes no prisoners at the poker table and supportively emasculates her even loopier husband, Ray Romano, at home), Chris Parnell (as an autistic-spectrum nerd-as-jerk who lives passive-aggressively with his mother, Estelle Harris, he reminds me of Jesse Eisenberg playing Mark Zuckerberg), David Cross (as a lesser cardsharp to his sister, perhaps because of an emasculating father), Richard Kind (as a clueless poker newbie with incredible luck), Werner Herzog (as an angry sadism fetishist with a poker sideline), and Dennis Farina (as an old-school-Vegas Rascal-riding cardsharp). The Grand is not as polished as Waiting for Guffman but it is about par for being dilatory and meandering. I would watch it again in a heartbeat. 4.5 stars.