THE sort of half-baked vanity proj ect favored by the Tribeca Film Festival (this one premiered there last year), Zak Penn’s “The Grand” features a slew of recognizable faces in a fitfully funny improvised comedy.
Set against the dull background of a Las Vegas poker tourney, the most prominent participant is a wildly mugging Woody Harrelson, who must win to keep his grandfather’s casino out of the hands of a developer (Michael McKean).
Other contestants include David Cross and Cheryl Hines (Ray Romano is her husband), neurotic siblings competing for the attention of dad Gabe Kaplan; old-timer Dennis Farina; Internet champ Richard Kind; and Chris Parnell, an idiot savant who quotes lines from “Dune.”
Also, that comic genius Werner Herzog turns up as a nutty contestant known only as “The German.”
And isn’t that another director, Brett Ratner? Well, nobody said “The Grand” was another “Best in Show.”
Running time: 104 minutes. Rated R (profanity, drugs). At the Village East, Second Avenue and 12th Street. – Lumenick