The Movie
I've said before that I'm a sucker for mockumentaries, and the fact proves itself again and again. The latest proof is this review, which follows one of the worst mockumentaries I've ever seen, Endless Orgy for the Goddess of Perversion. Despite sitting through that brutal disappointment and having no interest in poker, I felt a desire to check out The Grand. Not to jump ahead, but this one wasn't nearly as bad. In fact, it's actually an interesting exercise in improvisation by a massive cast of big names.

The high-wattage cast of The Grand is led by Woody Harrelson, who plays Jack Fero, a ne'er-do-well addict who inherits a casino from his grandfather, and quickly drives it deep into debt, as he owes millions to developer Steve Lavisch (mockumentary legend Michael McKean), who wants to tear the Lucky Foot down and put a new casino in its place. The only way he can keep his grandfather's gift is to win the $10 million winner-takes-all poker tournament being held in his casino.

The high-stakes event brings out a wide array of poker players, including big name pros like Daniel Negraneau, Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson, though they aren't the focus of course. A small group of spotlight players, representing the big stereotypes of poker players, are profiled and followed as they progress toward the final, including the old-timer (Dennis Farina), the aggressive woman (Cheryl Hines), the autistic math wiz (Chris Parnell), the obnoxious attention-seeker (David Cross) and the amateur (Richard Kind). The big six all do a great job of fleshing out their memorable characters, but Parnell takes the prize for a role that's not only bizarrely hilarious, between his "brain juice" and Dune references, but also touching and real.

The leads aren't the only stars here, as the film features one of the most recognizable ensemble casts since the days of The Cannonball Run. Among the supporting cast are performances by Jason Alexander, Hank Azaria and, playing quietly suffering spouses to two of the player, the very funny Ray Romano and Judy Greer, as well as many other hugely funny actors. When you can boast appearances by both Gabe Kaplan and Werner Herzog, you've got something special, especially since Herzog is fantastic as the enigmatic and sociopathic gambler known only as The German. They could have made an entirely separate movie about him alone.

The build-up in the first hour or so is quite funny, as you get to know the various characters, but considering the film is centered around a poker tournament, eventually they have to get down to playing the game, and that's when things slow down quite a bit, as the film gets too focused on the cards, even getting noticeably sentimental as the tournament makes its way to the end. The film is almost entirely improvised, and the final table was actually unscripted, so the actors play the game for real, in character, making for one of the more unique finales seen outside of documentaries, since none of the actors actually knows what's going to happen.

Presented as a mix of documentary, TV poker production (with a side step into TV commentator Mike Werbe's special kind of madness) and traditional film, the movie blurs the lines of what genre it's supposed to be, so it's not really a pure mockumentary. Considering that writer/director Zak Penn's previous directing gig was the documentary about a documentary Incident at Loch Ness, he obviously enjoys messing with genre conventions, and despite being known for his lightly-regarded action scripts, he knows comedy (as the classic PCU shows clearly.) Penn comes off as something of a post-modern artist, enjoying the possibilities of doing something different, rather than crafting a complete film. Thus, you have an ending that could have been polished and smoothed, instead of played out in front of the camera. It's unique and innovative, but it's still just people playing cards, which is hardly exciting, no matter what ESPN would like you to think.

The DVD
The Grand arrives on one DVD, which is packaged in a standard keepcase, enclosed in a slipcover that has as nice spot-embossed repeat of the cover art. The disc has a static anamorphic widescreen main menu, with options to watch the film, select scenes, adjust audio and check out special features. Audio options include English Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 tracks. There are no subtitles, though closed captioning is available.

The Quality
The anamorphic widescreen transfer on The Grand is very clean, delivering bright, vivid color and a nice level of fine detail. The graphic elements of the TV presentation portions really pop thanks to the presentation, though there's some buzzing and excessive noise in darker scenes, and some slight edge enhancement. On the bright side, there's no noticeable dirt or damage in the image, nor are there any compression artifacts.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio follows the majority of the mockumentaries on the market, with clean, straightforward center-channel dialogue, while the surround speakers bump up the source music or occasional sound effects when they're used. There's a surprising amount of bass in the music, which is the most engaging part of the sound, as there's nothing very dynamic about the mix, outside of the TV special effects.

The Extras
The biggest extra is a feature-length audio commentary with Penn, co-writer/executive producer Matt Bierman and actor Michael Karnow (Mike Werbe.) Though they keep a great pace and share a lot of info and thoughts on the film, the tone is a bit too jokey, to the point where it seems like they feel like they are above the idea of a commentary. Thus, when they start joking about the pointlessness of the venture, it doesn't feel much like a joke. A commentary certainly doesn't have to be serious, but it doesn't have to be like this.

There's more commentary available, provided on select scenes. First up is Penn with Harrelson, then Hines joins the party, and finally Romano takes Harrelson's spot. Harrelson seems a bit out of it in his understated tracks (26 minutes worth), but they are pretty entertaining to listen to. Harrelson and Hines chat about the final hand of the film, which didn't excite too much, as they just really talk about the poker play, making the Romano/Hines moments (15 minutes) the most enjoyable, as they keep things light and fun, with the best participant interaction of the three.

Considering the ending was not scripted, there were a few codas shot, to be used depending on how the final table played out. Included on the DVD are two short alternate endings (don't look at them if you don't want the ending ruined.) They both work well for the way the film plays out, but they don't change much about the characters. One ending includes optional commentary by Penn, Hines and Romano that's similar to the chat on the selected scenes. There are six more deleted scenes available to check out, four of which feature more commentary by Penn and his actors. There are some interesting moments here, including two that significantly change the way Dennis Farina's character, but the best has to be a chat between Romano and Cross at the casino bar, which is unnecessary to the film, but very funny.

If you haven't seen enough alternate footage yet, check out "Wild Cards," eight player profiles featuring a mix of footage that was cut and stuff that made it into the movie. There's more about a character mostly cut from the film, quick looks at all the celebrity cameos and further bits with the majority of the main characters. It's the kind of material I'd always hoped for from Christopher Guest's films, considering how much is actually shot for movies like this, so it's very welcome here.

Rounding out the bonus material is the film's theatrical trailer and a TV commercial.

The Bottom Line
Is this a laugh-out-loud comedy? No. Does that mean it's not worth checking out? Certainly not. The Grand is in some ways, an experiment in improv film, taken to the far-most possibilities, by a star-studded cast. But as any fan of improv can tell you, the highs tend to come with equal lows that, in this case, bring the film to its finish coasting on fumes. On the other hand, the DVD features a very attractive presentation, along with a healthy dose of extras, even if the tend to be a bit too jokey. Fans of the game of poker will get much more out of The Grand, including the many cameos by big poker stars, but curious comedy connoisseurs should get some chuckles as well.

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*The Reviewer's Bias section is an attempt to help readers use the review to its best effect. By knowing where the reviewer's biases lie on the film's subject matter, one can read the review with the right mindset.