Review of A Mighty Wind (2003) by Bill V — 17 Feb 2008

PLOT: A folk music icon named Irving Steinbloom has died. One of his sons, Jonathan (BOB BALABAN), has decided to put together one of those tribute concerts in his memory. He wants to pull it off in 2 weeks and he needs to convince various groups who worked with his father to make appearances.

When it comes to documentaries, some filmmakers inject their personal bias but want to make you believe they are being objective. Michael Moore comes to mind. However, when it comes to the work of writer/director Christopher Guest and co-writer Eugene Levy, there's no such pretension. That's because they do "mockumentaries," spoof and "regular" movie, with the on-camera interviews being mixed in with the rest of the story.

Taking their cue from spoofing heavy-metal rock bands in "This is Spinal Tap," poking fun at small town productions in "Waiting For Guffman," and the Westminster Dog Show in "Best in Show.", in "A Mighty Wind" they poke fun at the now mostly forgotten musical genre of folk music (1950s and 60s). Even though the film is about the musicians and singers brought together for the tribute performance, some of the more entertaining characters were not musically inclined. Fred Willard is grear as a TV "star", now manager, Ed Begley, Jr. gets some of good lines as a Swedish TV producer who knows a lot of Yiddish, and Bob Balaban (already mentioned) generates some stuff playing the obessive-compulsive tribute organizer.

Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest (who looks suspiciously like Paul Stookey) makeup The Folksman who were "two-badours" before McKean's character joined them and turned them into troubadours. There's "Mitch and Mickey" -- Mitch Cohen (EUGENE LEVY) and Mickey Crabbe (CATHERINE O'HARA) and the younger The New Main Street Singers - that includes Laurie (JANE LYNCH) and Terry Bohner (JOHN MICHAEL HIGGINS), Sissy Knox (PARKER POSEY, under utilized by the way) and others.

The script was great with lots of good material. What made this film really good is the fact all parts were improvised. The directorial comments on the DVD indicate everybody was told who their characters were and then they were told to do them. It worked real well. Guest's directorial style kept things moving along at a good and even brisk pace, with plenty of fun stuff well dispersed throughout the film.