American Cannibal is ostensibly about the phony, exploitative nature of reality TV, and though documentarians Perry Grebin and Michael Nigro hit that point too hard by piling up interviews with TV experts who speak in exaggerated cautionary tones,

"American Cannibal" is a fast-paced satire about the state reality television that builds its humor on its depiction of the limits our current reality TV craze.

For all of its self-consciously sophisticated layering, American Cannibal manages a few authentically dark moments of its own.

A genuine cinematic hoot, while also providing insight into the ways of American mass entertainment.

To the film’s credit, it’s finally a whistle-blower on unsafe shooting practices, not unsafe dining habits.

What's here is a glimpse not into how far people will go to win a reality-TV show, but how far greedy writers and producers will go to degrade, debauch and enrich themselves.

This was much better when Mel Brooks did it back in the '60s.

Reality TV has rarely cared much about truth -- and maybe this is the doc it deserves. The crass truthiness here is far more apt than any of the glossy satire in American Dreamz.

Less a piece of incisive cultural commentary than a riveting portrait of two nice guys whose lives and careers go into a tailspin, one moral compromise at a time.