Must see cult film -- still has bite and humor.

Rating: 8/10 (19 April 2001)

Trendy, well done "rockumentary" as director Rob Reiner interviews and accompanies former rave Spinal Tap, now an un-hip, dispirited British metal band on the last legs of a hardly formidable American tour, all the while seeing its audiences shrink and age, the gigs get progressively shaggier, and the whole thing grind to a near halt.
This winning send-up of the rock world is, to be sure, much more hit than miss. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer (also script and music co-writers, along with Reiner) have the time of their lives while giving right-on-the-mark perfs as the brain-fried band members who are suffering the usual indignities of a band slowly going down for the last count. Hilarious squabblings over bad album covers, cheap set props, and poor management, along with informal comments on the direction of the band, their image, promo parties, and scheduling headaches get the full treatment, satirizing every cliche there is. The boys themselves present riveting Jagger-like stances, attitudes and accents that go beyond real. The backstage haps and "concert" footage, in particular have real bite.
Favorite bits: Guest and his 11-volume control amplifier, Fred Willard greeting a very unenthused band to his military base fete; Shearer getting pinned inside a futuristic prop piece; and McKean's all-out raunchy vocals.

A cult favorite over the years, the cutting edge humor has dulled a bit, becoming more and more a time capsule piece as time goes by, but that alone is probably the best reason now to see it, just to find out what all the buzz was about when this first came out in 1984.
Guest, of course, went on to create two other highly successful "mockumentaries" -- "Waiting for Guffman" and "Best in Show."