Mixed hand

>>Poker comedy The Grand survives on
the strength of its terrific cast

FUNNY GAMER: David Cross

by MARK SLUTSKY

Zak Penn must be a popular guy in Hollywood. You might know him as the director of the Werner Herzog-starring mockumentary Incident at Loch Ness, but chances are you’re more familiar with his work on a seemingly endless list of superhero movie titles: the second and third X-Men movies, Fantastic Four, Elektra, the upcoming The Incredible Hulk. For his second feature, the mockumentary poker comedy The Grand, he’s assembled one of the most extensive casts of comedic actors since It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

Despite the fact that they’re working from a pretty weak foundation, they manage to prod The Grand into being a halfway-funny comedy in a genre that’s starting to feel pretty tired. The film is set in Las Vegas and is based around an annual poker tournament at a casino owned by ne’er-do-well heir Woody Harrelson. An inveterate drug addict, he’s in deep to a casino developer (Michael McKean) and needs to win the tournament’s $10-million prize to keep the hotel.

The competition attracts eccentric poker players from around the world, and it’s they who provide most of the film’s laughs. Chris Parnell is a brilliant, social maladjusted numbers nerd; Cheryl Hines is a competitive Long Island mom; David Cross is her envious younger brother; Dennis Farina is the Las Vegas old-timer; Werner Herzog, of all people, is a career gambler known only as The German.

You’ve also got Jason Alexander, Judy Greer, Ray Romano, Gabe Kaplan, Estelle Harris and Hank Azaria in there too. Between all of them, there are some genuinely funny moments—you’d have to work pretty hard to screw up with that much talent in the room.

But there are some problems. Though the film is supposed to be a documentary, he sets up scenes that are shot as if they’re in a conventional narrative comedy, staged and directed in a way that doesn’t remotely resemble the kind of movie it’s supposed to be spoofing. But that’s not the point of this comedy sub-genre any more; it’s become a way to stick funny people in front of a camera and have them do their thing. When it works, it’s great, but as stretches of The Grand show, it can also just feel lazy.

The Grand opens this
Friday, March 21

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