‘Best in Show’ among best films of the year

In theaters

BEST IN SHOW Directed by Christopher Guest. Written by Guest and Eugene Levy. 90 minutes. PG-13.

Christopher Guest’s hilarious new mocumentary, “Best in Show,” wins this year’s coveted blue ribbon prize for Most Unforgiving Eye.

In its cruel-yet-all-too-truthful observations, it suggests that some dog owners, particularly those who shamelessly peddle their pooches in elaborate dog shows, are no better than some beauty pageant mothers. They are cloying, hysterical, insecure louts who will do anything to make certain their little Fifi or Fido take home the trophy for Best in Show.

The film is scathing, a sharp, biting satire that keeps getting meaner and meaner – not to mention funnier and funnier – as the festivities it swirls around gradually snowball into doggy hell.

I loved this film. Just as Guest did so superbly in his 1997 movie, “Waiting for Guffman,” it consistently and happily takes an ax to – and skewers – the worst aspects of human nature.

The dialogue, most of which was improvised by the cast, is a triumph of coy understatement. Throughout, the characters unwittingly reveal themselves with some of the best one-liners of the year. Indeed, whether you come to hate or love these people for their mother lode of shortcomings, you’ll almost certainly recognize at least one of them as an amplified version of someone you know.

The film, which builds to the fictional Mayflower Dog Show in Pittsburgh (think New York’s Westminster), follows the trials of several dogs and their owners, most of whom are as neurotic as a lone Chihuahua in a pen filled with pit bulls.

We meet Gerry Flek (Eugene Levy), his loose wife Cookie (Catherine O’Hara) and their Norwich terrier, Winky; Harlan Pepper (Guest) and his slobbering bloodhound; Stefan Vanderhoff (Michael McKean), his flamboyant partner, Scott (John Michael Higgins) and their fussy Shih Tzu; the saucy Sherri Ann Ward Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge), her handler, Christy Cummings (Jane Lynch), and their standard poodle; and finally the impossible Swans (Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock), who are so high-strung, they’ve taken their Weimaraner to counseling ever since the dog saw them having sex.

With Fred Willard in a brilliant spoof as a fumbling television sports commentator who freely speaks his mindless mind, what ensues in “Best in Show” is so funny, even cats might agree – this film is something to chow, chow, chow about.

Grade: A

PROOF OF LIFE Directed by Taylor Hackford. Written by Tony Gilroy. 135 minutes. Rated R.

After all the rumors and speculation, the nasty tabloid headlines and the failed marriage of its star, Meg Ryan, to her longtime husband Dennis Quaid, it comes down to this for Taylor Hackford’s new film, “Proof of Life.” The rumors about Ryan’s alleged relationship with her co-star, Russell Crowe, were more interesting than the muddled movie they left in their wake.

Indeed, the film, as directed by Hackford (“An Officer and a Gentleman”) from a screenplay by Tony Gilroy, sometimes is so dull and plodding, audiences might want to slap it with paddles while screaming “Clear!”

Shot on location in South America, Chechnya and England, it is nice to look at. But since films should be more than just eye candy, there’s the small matter of the film’s script, which is so busy being a guidebook into ransom negotiations, it forgot it should also entertain.

“Proof of Life” stars Crowe as Terry Thorne, a former SAS commando who now makes his living as a hostage negotiator. Apparently, there’s a lot of work in that field, as Thorne leads a busy life – one that ultimately takes him to the mountains of South America. That is where this film tries to find a heartbeat in the kidnapping of Peter Bowman (David Morse), an American engineer being held by guerrillas for $3 million.

Hired by Bowman’s wife, Alice (Ryan), a woman unsure of her shaky marriage after a miscarriage that occurred eight months earlier in Africa, Thorne leads the long and grueling negotiations to safely return Peter to his home.

The emphasis here is on long and grueling – not just for Alice, Terry and Peter – who go through the sort of physical transformation Tom Hanks might envy, but for audiences, who must slog through it with them.

What surprises in “Proof of Life” isn’t just its overall mediocrity, but that Ryan and Crowe have zero chemistry together on screen. There isn’t one spark between them – not one – which robs the film of the soul it needed to lift it out of the ongoing tedium.

Still, there are standouts. Morse’s excellent performance steals the movie away from its overhyped stars, and David Caruso as a hostage negotiator does his best work since “N.Y.P.D. Blue.” Indeed, his scenes with Crowe are sometimes so intense, one almost wishes this movie had been about them.

Grade: C-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays in Style and Thursdays in the scene.