"The Grand" is an experimental comedy involving a Poker tournament. It features film directors playing participants in a high stakes card game, supported by recognizable faces from TV and movies like Woody Harrelson, Richard Kind and Ray Romano, all them improvising in an attempt to recapture the magic of a Christopher Guest style opus. However, director Zak Penn is not Christopher Guest. He lacks comic timing and "The Grand" is fatally long. All in all, there's around twenty minutes of amusing material and lots of stupefying misfires to wade through to get to them. Brett Ratner's performance will only add to the already lengthy list of his many, many detractors. Werner Herzog, as a psychotic Germanic card shark, is amusing initially but wears out welcome quickly. Only Gabe Kaplan, a bona fide professional gambler in real life, delivers consistent laughs mostly because his performance is rooted in reality. Kaplan isn't trying to be funny as opposed to an overly unctuous Ray Romano and everyone else offering self-conscious caricatures as opposed to real people. After all, the director's forte is comic book adaptations and very few are blessed with the kind of comic chops to pull something like this off. More often than not, the cast are trying for big laugh lines instead of the droll, throwaway statements that made both "Waiting For Guffman" or "Spinal Tap" such a delight. "The Grand" is a curiosity piece you might want to catch on the IFC channel, but definitely not worth the time and trouble of going to the theater to see. Rent "Lost In America" instead and watch the Las Vegas section, especially Garry Marshall's inspired turn as a casino owner, and you'll see what this film aspired to be, but sadly "The Grand" didn't have the right dealer at the helm.