Christopher Guest has been making the same movie for decades. They’re each a mockumentary drawing from the same cast of goofy looking funny people and they parody a subsection of American culture with a combination of snobbery and absurd non sequitors. And for the most part they’re all incredible.
So why does “Mascots,” Guest’s latest as an exclusive for Netflix, fail so poorly? That it’s almost a complete rehash of “Best in Show” doesn’t tell the whole story. In fact after so many ill-conceived performances of obscure farm animals dancing, it’s barely a movie.
“Mascots” starts exactly as “Best in Show,” with a misdirection of a dramatic scene to an unexpected punchline. A man awaits his X-Ray results from a doctor and receives some good news, only for the camera to pull back and reveal that he’s currently sitting in the examining room in a big red plush costume. He and his wife (Zach Woods and Sarah Baker) have an uncomfortable marriage working as a pair of mascots for a minor league baseball team and are about to head out on the road for an annual mascots competition.
Guest profiles about as many competitors as he did in “Best in Show.” There’s a London-born guy who dresses as a hedgehog and has to contend with his family’s tradition as a performer, there’s a pretentious modern dancer (Parker Posey) who turns her work as an armadillo into performance art, and an Irish brute (Chris O’Dowd) who dresses as a giant fist at hockey games. Guest also revives his “Waiting for Guffman” character Corky St. Clair.
But not only does a mascots competition seem like an implausible subculture to even exist, the people he’s satirizing don’t either. Guest has had a lot better luck poking fun at Middle America suburbia, deep South rednecks or effeminate showbiz types even in the case of them all gathering at a dog show. Putting everyone at an unrealistic mascots competition wouldn’t matter if the collection of colorful weirdos was better.
“Mascots” even loses the look of a faux-documentary, more closely resembling a cheap sitcom than a fly on the wall film in the vein of the gritty “This is Spinal Tap.” Guest relies on far more one-shot cut, reverse cut sequences that blunt the impact of some of Guest’s more observational comedy, and the direct to camera testimonials barely give an illusion that there’s an actual camera crew trying to craft a narrative here.
Guest earns some cheap laughs at the expense of those with disabilities, but he masks them as ignorant white people aiming to be politically correct. And it grows really tired when the entire gag amounts to a little person dressed up as an inchworm or even a googly-eyed turd.
But he gets a pass when it’s more of his regulars delivering such lines, and there a good number of choice zingers that redeem “Mascots” in bursts. Jane Lynch and Ed Begley Jr. knock it out of the park when they team up in an interview as rival mascot judges, he known for the “first anatomically correct costume” and she for her best selling book about her time performing as a moose, “A-Mooseing Grace: A Mascot’s Journey to God, and Success at Real Estate.” Then there’s the hapless Langston Aubrey (Michael Hitchcock). He brings his performance as a plumber to a charity event in order to impress an old high school friend. “Spoiler Alert: We really hit it off on Facebook Messenger,” he says.
It’s tempting to say that fans of Guest’s style will appreciate any return to form from the director, but it’s more likely that those most familiar with his work will find “Mascots” most frustrating.
2 stars