Alien Autopsy (2006)

Alien Autopsy grew on me from start to finish, beginning with a 3-star impression and ending with a 4-star. It's a low-budget mockumentary that slowly unpacks a battery of quirkiness and surprises -- right down to the end-credits revelation that the scruffy documentary director is played by Bill Pullman! Declan Donnelly and Ant McPartlin engagingly play the real-life protagonists Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, two Brits who faked and filmed a Roswellian alien autopsy. (The real guys also appear in the closing credits.) Alien Autopsy is the "story" of how they came upon a 50-year-old Army film of an "actual" alien autopsy, lost the film, produced their own fake version of the film, became insanely famous, and what happened after that. Since the film they "found" is supposedly at the center of the actual and controversial film Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction? hosted by Jonathan Frakes, we basically have a Be Kind Rewind approach to a film about a film within a film within a film. Our protagonists are ne'er-do-well posers who (in the mockumentary) manage to pull off one of the biggest scams ever on the international viewing public. It's a low-key hoot, a very underplayed comedy that is suggestive of Black Books or The Office (UK). (I even thought Mackenzie Crook from The Office appeared in it.) If you like humor that doesn't beat you over the head but pokes you in the ribs till you chortle, and want to see our protagonists wrestle with a Russell Brand-like psychopath, don't miss Alien Autopsy. P.S. I had to acquire it from a competing service because it's been a Save title here for what seems like eons. (See my growing Add Bl-ckbuster list for hundreds of titles that are available from a competitor if not here.) 4 stars. (2-3-11)