Opération Luchador

As mockumentaries go, it's not as laugh-out-loud funny as Spinal Tap or the brilliant handful made by Chris Guest, Fred Willard and their repertory band of co-conspirators that started with Waiting for Guffman. It's more tongue-in-cheek, in the fashion of a Mondo Cane; or the recent El Conde, which "revealed" that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was actually a vampire.

This one sells its unlikely premise of a masked Mexican wrestler (Luchador) foiling several of Hitler's plots and turning the tide of World War II. The production blends b&w footage from newsreels and old movies with newly-staged "historical" scenes to tell the outrageous tale finally emerging from secret documents and classified files. Those are interspersed with with interview snippets from historians or those with personal connections to this unheralded heroic figure.

The narrator's dry tone makes it seem like a real doc, or college lecture with visual aids, enhanced by incorporation of actual players and events. It's a fun watch with a few surprising turns.