For Your Consideration

I'm a big fan of Christopher Guest films and over the years I've laughed out loud numerous times to his lines of dialogue, many of which are quotes taken from the now classic mockumentary of This Is Spinal Tap. Over the last few years, he's made more of my favourite comedies such as A Mighty Wind and Best In Show. So I was looking forward with much anticipation to watching his latest output, For Your Consideration, based upon a small independent film that ruffles its cast when the Holywood rumour mill starts taking about one of them winning an Oscar.

However, I have the unenviable task of stating that this latest film, from my perspective, was totally unwatchable in that it was devoid of any of the usual quirkiness and sliding-off-the-couch funniness of Guest's previous films. I could only stomach about 30 minutes of it before could bear no more.

The reason for this, perhaps, is that For Your Consideration is not a mockumentary as such but a more straight-laced film which lays out the pitfalls and behind-the-scenes look at how movies can be made in Holywood. We see how the writers are forced to change their story, how the director loses vision of the project and how the actors turn on each other when they smell the whiff of a statue. But the problem with all of this is that it is just not funny because it is clearly not meant to be taken seriously and therefore creates a small window for itself to work properly and I am sorry to say, it does not.

If you are a fan of Guest's work, this is one to avoid. If you enjoyed Spinal Tap but have been unaware of his other films mentioned, go and rent those. Sadly this is one film that deserves only to win a Razzie.

I would give this film 1.5 knobs that go to 11.