This is Spinal Tap has been credited with significant cult status: it is 48th in Empire’s 500 films of all time and got 96% from Rotten Tomatoes, a worthy feat by any means. Despite this, This is Spinal Tap elicited mixed emotions from me.
This is Spinal Tap is a ‘mockumentary’ where advert director Marty DiBergi (real director Rob Reiner) follows fictional British rock band Spinal Tap as they tour the United States in order to promote their new album ‘Smell the Glove’. The group was originally started by childhood friends David St Hubbins (Michael Mikean) and Nigel Tufuel (Christopher Guest). They were later joined by bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), keyboard player Viv Savage (David Ruff) and an unprecedented number of drummers who all seem to die between tours. The entire band are, of course, actually actors who put on English accents and ad-lib for most of the script.
The film gives a mocking insight into the world of failing stardom, which certainly speaks to our generation if magazines such as Heat or OK! are anything to go by. It also imitates the style of fly on the wall documentaries, which again we are now more than familiar with. It is sad witnessing the gradual decline of this band’s reputation and with it their confidence in themselves; this is made even more obvious when compared with spliced in ‘archive’ footage of their best bits. This footage shows how the band once had all they wanted but have since become irrelevant, a fact they fail to realise. The movie excels at showing the band’s world and their subtle dynamics; we see how they argue and reconcile only to argue again. Orbiting the drama are other caricatures of the celebrity world, from the bumbling manager trying to keep it all together, to the interfering girlfriend that believes she should take control of everything. The band themselves also mock celebrity culture with their public strops, inane backstage requests and inflated egos: celebrities clearly haven’t changed much in the past 16 years.
All of the characters are larger than life for the sake of satire but it is here that the film’s comedy begins to fall down for me. The gags very much had the feel of other films such as Wayne’s World and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure where everything that is said and done comes from left field. Maybe I am just not the target audience so I missed a lot of the genius behind it, but the jokes only made me chuckle a few times and for ‘the funniest film ever’ that is not a great score. This is disappointing as the film has a lot going for it but by the end I found I was just waiting for the final number and it all to be over.
