'Pete Tong': DJ Spoof With Some Fresh Spin

On the European rave scene -- drugs! models! even more drugs! -- the music thumping from the speakers has become just as important as the hip, sexy surroundings. DJs, aka turntablists, the folks who make and mix beats for the whacked-out club kids, enjoy celebrity status. They're the new rock stars. Fatboy Slim might be the biggest name over here, but perhaps the hottest underground player working the wheels of steel in the U.K. is the man mentioned in the title of the new mockumentary "It's All Gone Pete Tong," a Spinal Tappian spoof of dance-club culture.

Tong makes a cameo in the movie, but writer-director Michael Dowse isn't that interested in him. Nope, as the cheeky subtitle informs, the movie is really about "The Legend of Frankie Wilde . . . the Deaf DJ." That premise sounds potentially politically incorrect, and it is. But Dowse, who uses grainy film stock and a handheld camera to capture the docu feel, is generous with his silly slams. Along with tweaking DJs and the hard-of-hearing, he has a go at music writers, teenagers, talent agents, fashion models -- heck, even Austrians. The jokes come two, three at a time, smart and dumb alike, and if one doesn't hit, the next one usually does.

When we first meet Wilde -- played with wiry energy and really bad teeth by British comedian Paul Kaye -- the DJ king of the Spanish resort town of Ibiza is holding forth seriously about . . . footwear. "I'm the Imelda Marcos of the flip-flop world," he explains with Shakespearean sincerity. "A flip-flop is perfection. Sometimes I'll just stare at a flip-flop for hours." The woman interviewing him nods solemnly, as if she's just been blessed with wisdom from the Dalai Lama. When she asks him about his new music, he explains that he's "forging it with a lyrical smelter." Monty Python fans will have a blast with this stuff.

There are a smattering of U.K.-specific gags, but most of the comedy is so broad, it doesn't matter which side of the pond you live on. After all, a grown man wrestling a giant, coked-out badger is universally amusing. (I think the badger is Frankie's subconscious -- then again, it might just be a giant, coked-out badger.) There's also a great sight gag involving mucus, gooey proof that the film's "based on a true story" preface is a big fat lie. The filmmakers have created several Web sites to perpetuate the myth that Frankie Wilde is a real person. It's a fun game, but he's about as real as Austin Powers.

When he's not taking himself seriously or knob-twiddling out his newest electronic hit, Frankie is snorting mountains of cocaine, guzzling booze and cheating on his wife. She sleeps around, too -- usually right next to her husband, on the same couch. In a clever skewering of British manners, the couple even borrow condoms from each other. (Fair warning: For all its charms, "It's All Gone Pete Tong" stretches its R rating to the max, and many of the best visual jokes are filthy. Lotta bad words, too.) Anyway, the "occupational hazard of working in the clubs" eventually catches up to the DJ, who's often seen with his head slamming against the speakers, and he loses his hearing. Now that he can't make music -- well, he can, but it's a squawky god-awful racket -- his wife leaves him, his fans boo him, and his sexual-deviant manager dumps him, too. So Frankie, stripped of the celebrity status that he so thrived on, disappears, with no one to help him but that giant, surly badger, which sneaks up on his master with the stealth of Inspector Clouseau's Cato.

Like "This Is Spinal Tap," "It's All Gone Pete Tong" should have a long afterlife as a midnight-movie special. That doesn't mean it's totally without heart or depth. After a failed suicide attempt -- he straps bottle rockets to his head -- Frankie summons the strength to make a comeback. When he returns triumphantly to an Ibiza nightclub, you'll be tickled by this small indie laugher. But, lo and behold, you may find yourself touched by it, too.

It's All Gone Pete Tong (90 minutes, at Landmark's Bethesda Row, Cineplex Odeon Shirlington and Landmark's E Street Cinema) is rated R for pervasive drug and alcohol abuse, language and some sexual content and nudity.