Excellent, a Must See

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

"Best in Show" doesn't only call out for dog lovers, but for all people alike, as the main focus is a dog show competition, but Christopher Guest handcrafted it into a multilayer satire about how people can go to extreme lengths to win first prize.The variety of personalities combined with the traditional cast composed of Guest's regular actors made the character development grow almost on its own.While "Best in Show" will not surpass Guest's earlier films or be in a select top of satire films, it's still a decent mock on the behavior of people in a competition.

Fortunately it didn't cost me anything; friends rented it for a movie night so I sat through it for free. They thought it was great. I couldn't wait for it to be over. The odd thing is that I was on the cat show circuit for a while (yes, they have shows for cats too) so I should have appreciated the humor and lampooning of the whole concept, but I didn't. I can say that I met some pretty weird people at those cat shows, so that much was well within the limits of credibility... it sounds like some reviewers who didn't like the film had a hard time believing that such people exist, but it pains me to confirm that they do. The writer(s) must have some familiarity with these kinds of events in order to "get it" enough to write the screenplay, but it's just plain not funny.

A keenly observed parody of the wonderful and wacky world of competitive dog showing, this is an absolutely hilarious mockumentary. It has a razor sharp script by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, though I understand that there was quite a bit of improvisation, and the former directs with great style and flair. The film is full to the brim with bizarre, outrageous and over the top characters but I sometimes got the impression that I would meet people like those on display here if I have ever entered my beloved Cocker Spaniel Freddie at a major dog show such as Crufts! It is a great exploration of a very small, insular world. The film benefits from a brilliant cast of comedic veterans such as Guest, Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean, John Michael Higgins, Jennifer Coolidge, Jane Lynch, Parker Posey, Michael Hitchcock, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley, Jr. and Larry Miller. I have to give special mention, however, to Fred Willard who is just on another level of complete and total hilarity as the dog show's co-host Buck Laughlin, who has a serious case of verbal diarrhoea. He devotes much of his energy to insulting the judges and handlers, asking idiotic questions about dogs and their capabilities, telling lewd stories and making tortured baseball analogies. Jim Paddock is a fantastic straight man to Willard as the humourless, straight-laced canine expert Trevor Beckwith, who becomes increasingly exasperated as he is forced to endure more and more of Laughlin's inane prattle.

Contestants bring their pets to compete in a national dog show in Philadelphia. This mock documentary gets off to a slow start, as the early scenes are not particularly funny and it feels like a real documentary rather than a spoof. However, the establishment of a documentary tone is actually a setup for laughs that come later in the film. Guest shows that he learned a few things about making mocumentaries from his starring role in "This is Spinal Tap." While this is not as funny as that Rob Reiner film, it is a lot of fun. The cast is composed of a host of familiar faces and they all deliver deadpan performances. Willard is especially funny.