‘Not a second of wasted time’: Rob Reiner’s golden run from Spinal Tap to A Few Good Men was amazing | Rob Reiner

CToday the assumption is driven by the algorithm: “If you like it, you’ll like it this “…” But Rob Reiner was a filmmaker who beat an algorithm in the days before there was even one to beat. He was impossible to predict, at least during his golden years. How one man could create the most inspiring mockumentary ever made, a handful of stunning romantic comedies, coming-of-age yarns, well-known fairy-tale comedy, and a suspense thriller that’s both creepy and terrifying. and A cool but fun courtroom drama? Well, he did, all in the first decade of his career as a director.

American audiences initially loved him as an actor: he was a liberal brother-in-law known as Meathead in nearly 200 episodes of the late-1970s sitcom All in the Family, based on the UK favorite Till Death Us Do Part. He remained in front of the camera for his 1984 directorial debut This Is Spinal Tap, which scored a whole host of daredevils. In fact, his face is the first thing we see: he plays fawning documentary filmmaker Marty DeBerge, a gentle parody of Martin Scorsese as seen in the off-stage scenes of The Last Waltz, his concert film about the band. However, Spinal Tap’s main point was how quickly fame can make you stupid – or make fools think they’re geniuses. The heavy metal band, fronted by Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer, said it best: “It’s a fine line between stupid and smart.”

Part of the fun of This Is Spinal Tap was that it broke into the world without much success or fanfare, so that home video viewers who stumbled upon it had the sense that they had discovered the entire film for themselves. Reiner’s achievement was striking: he engaged in creating and shaping improvisational material in an innovative way, but still insisted on the kind of precision typical of a screwball with geometric precision. There is not a single second of wasted or dead time in the film, which clocks in at just under 85 minutes.

He proved his knack for the old-fashioned comedy double in his next film, The Sure Thing, which reworked Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night for the Brat Pack generation. An early display of John Cusack’s unbridled magic, it wasn’t a huge hit either, but it showed that Reiner could make a cool but distinctive Hollywood product, and it established the rhythm that would define the business’s first decade: make ’em fast, make ’em good, and move on.

His next film, Stand By Me, adapted from Stephen King’s short story The Body, about four teenage friends who travel into the woods to find a body, was steeped in emotional indulgence: “I never had any friends later like the ones I had when I was 12. Oh my God, does anyone have anyone?” (Yes, yes.) But if there’s an antidote to such banality, it lies in Reiner’s glorious direction of his young actors, including Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix, both of whom are painfully raw as boys undervalued or neglected by their parents.

Reiner freely admitted that these were part of an exhibition of self-portraits, also including Tom Cruise as the military lawyer intimidated by his late father’s reputation in A Few Good Men. These words expressed the insecurity he felt towards his father, Karl Reiner, who initially doubted his son’s talents. Reiner Sr. also happened to be a widely beloved actor turned director, but his popularity threatened to overwhelm his son before he had the chance to forge his own career. “There was a time when getting out of Carl’s shadow was important to Rob,” said Billy Crystal, a friend of Reiner Jr.’s.

It was Crystal who had a cameo role as a mime waiter in This Is Spinal Tap (“Mime is money”) and formed part of the ensemble in The Princess Bride, Reiner’s fairytale follow-up to Stand By Me, which continued Reiner’s pattern of overlooked gems, future favorites and sleeper hits.

This pattern was broken by his next three pictures, all of which were box office bull’s-eyes right out of the gate. When Crystal and Meg Ryan performed Harry Met Sally, brilliantly written by Nora Ephron, with a verve that suggested they were the first ever “Will they/Won’t they?” Couple on a romcom date. (Shout out, too, to Reiner’s mother, Estelle, whose deadpan reading — “I’ll get what you’re getting” — was the punchline to Ryan’s fake-orgasm deli scene.) Then he returned to Stephen King, with greater success this time, for Misery, a ridiculously fun thriller, far removed from what I think Reiner intended, about a helpless novelist (James Caan) held captive by a prisoner. An endearing but troubled fan, played by Academy Award winner Kathy Bates.

Reiner, on the other hand, didn’t. He was never nominated, not even for A Few Good Men, his next hit film, which memorably pitted Cruise opposite Jack Nicholson, and was nominated for Best Picture. It didn’t seem to matter, because it was shaping up to be, in the words of his second film, a sure thing. In terms of quality, if not box office, he was right when he said in 1994 that he had produced seven pictures that included the phrase “Not Stinky.” With Spinal Tap-esque arrogance, this boast came on the eve of the release of North, a foolish chess piece, another study of an abandoned son, and his first outright failure. In 2024, Rolling Stone ranked it second on its list of the 50 Best Bad Movies by Great Directors, bested only by Jack Francis Ford Coppola.

For the next 30 years, there wasn’t much to write home about. American President, Reiner’s wrenching follow-up to North, featured winning performances from Annette Bening and Michael Douglas, and returned Reiner to his Capra-style comfort zone. After that, it was all just awards bait (the civil rights drama Ghosts of Mississippi), undistinguished romantic comedies (The Story of Us, Rumor Has It), fluff (The Magic of Belle Isle), and even a needless sequel to his only masterpiece (Spinal Tap II: The End Continues). One area in which he seemed to still be fruitfully experimenting was the documentary “God and Country” — he produced the documentary about the rise of Christian nationalism and directed “Albert Brooks: The Defense of My Life.”

However, the afterglow of those early images was always strong enough to carry it. Reiner may not go down in history as one of the greats, but for at least his first decade he delivered the goods.