Christopher Guest is back with a new mockumentary about the reunion of three 1960s folk music groups. The premise is simple – legendary folk promoter Irving Steinbloom passes away. His son organises a concert in honour of his father bringing together Steinbloom’s biggest acts in one grand reunion. The three groups – the perennially smiling, New Main Street Singers, the Folksmen (Guest, Shearer and McKean reunited after Spinal Tap) and the biggest of the three – the long estranged duo – Mitch (Eugene Levy) and Mickey (Catherine O’Hara).

Guest gives all three groups a different flavour but it is Mitch and Mickey that hold centre stage and both Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara rise to the occasion delivering wonderfully nuanced performances. However, Spinal Tap fans will be left somewhat disappointed that the Folksmen are not given more scope even though shades of Tap are very much present when the group begin analysing their comeback. But it is as if Guest has made a conscious decision not to make A Mighty Wind a variant of Spinal Tap and he underplays his own, Shearer and McKean’s role considerably. This is fair enough but one is left wondering whether some of the film’s strongest resources remained untapped.

Comparisons with Spinal Tap are inevitable but unfair. Tap was a masterpiece – as near flawless a film as could be made for the genre. Therefore judging A Mighty Wind by that yardstick would be unduly harsh. But even as a stand alone, Guest’s film, while likeable and generally amusing, not only never approaches Spinal Tap standards but also falls short of Guest’s last film Best in Show. Part of the reason lies in the large cast of characters in the film and while each one of them is superbly played it may have been better to give more time to a smaller cast. Furthermore, while both Spinal Tap and Best in Show are satirical looks at their subject matter, A Mighty Wind is a much softer more affectionate ‘homage’ to folk music and this means that at some point in the film, it stops becoming a comedy and becomes a more ‘honest’ albeit amusing documentary.

However, despite the drawbacks, a Mighty Wind is a welcome change from the run of the mill comedies that are churned out over the summer and while it may not be Guest at his best, it still has his distinctive stamp and in that sense it succeeds in being more than entertaining. For this, much of the credit must be given to Christopher Guest’s wonderful cast of regulars who bring to life the quirky characters that form the basis of Guest’s films.