The Finest Movie Ever Made About A Band That Never Was

Rating: Null/10 (4 November 2000)

There have been many directors before Rob Reiner (Orson Welles immediately comes to mind), who could never break the curse of having made a brilliant debut with their initial directorial efforts. Depending on your world-view, you could say that since the release of "Tap," Reiner has become a seasoned, respected and prolific craftsman of some of the finest films that American cinema has to offer, or you could think of him as the cheesiest of Hollywood hack cheeseball sellouts.
But diehard fans and despondent detractors have to agree on one thing: THIS IS SPINAL TAP still stands today as the best example of American comic satire ever done, especially about its particular subject. It is to rock and roll what MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL was to Arthurian mythology, and has so embedded itself into the lexicon of popular culture, that it has raised ire from the very bands it pokes fun at, and has even garnered a devoted cult of loyal fans worldwide who never 'got' the punchline: THE BAND DOESN'T EXIST!!
From bands like The Beatles and The Stones, to heavy metal mavens and hair bands like Def Leppard, Ratt, Black Sabbath, Poison and Metallica, no one is spared. And I think what really distinguishes "Tap" from similar movies that have been made since, the satirists responsible realized when they conceived it, that you have to have a genuine affection for the subject you are skewering. Which, ten years-plus after its initial release, still shows through in every performance and every line, scripted or ad-libbed.
By now, if you know anything about rock, be it classic or contemporary, you have to have had some brush with the character archetypes so accurately portrayed here: Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer, all SNL alumni from that show's glory days, play lead singer/lead guitarist "David St. Hubbins," co-lead singer/lead guitarist "Nigel Tufnel" and bassist/backing vocalist "Derek Smalls," respectively.

Erstwhile documentarian and bottom-rung commercial director Martin DiBergi (Reiner) jumped at the chance to film every sight, sound and smell of the latest tour of Tap, the band that shaped the director's whole outlook about music, especially rock and roll. What he captured during that period is the stuff that, cutting-edge back in its heyday, can now be seen every week on shows like VH1's BEHIND THE MUSIC or THE E!TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY. Today's bands have not only managed to pattern themselves after Tap, but with all of their pomposity, egotism and displays of infantile sexuality and arrested emotional development in word, deed and song, they have surpassed them!
The newly restored version should go into the very next time capsule that the Smithsonian or any similar organization decides to assemble. Like HOLY GRAIL, it only gets better and funnier with repeated viewings. Has success spoiled Rob Reiner? That depends on who you're talking to, but even the passage of time will never destroy or diminish his first and best work.