Review of Lenny (1974) by Destinee S — 07 Jul 2010

Earlier this evening, when I was watching The Cooler, I was expecting a movie with an overload of sex and nudity. Boy, was I ever in for a surprise when I watched this movie. This one just about matched the Cooler in terms of nudity and sex, plus it did The Cooler one better: there was a lesbian scene! To make things better, the movie was great.

A lot of people want to become rock stars in order to get laid, but Lenny Bruce proved in this movie that comedians are just as good at getting the ladies. Maybe I should become a stand up comedian.

Lenny is a stylish and well made biopic about one of my favorite topics (comedy) and an interesting man, comedian Lenny Bruce. I am pretty familiar with most of the great stand up comics, but until now I was never exposed to the material of Lenny Bruce. I should have received a misdemeanor for that crime against good taste instead of Lenny receiving misdemeanors for saying bad words (sorry, that was a cheesy joke. Lenny is shaking in his grave right now).

This movie shows the seedy side of showbiz: it shows how entertainers are dragged into the seedy world of crime and drugs. The film also works as a "freedom of speech" movie, kind of like The People vs. Larry Flynt. It also shows how comics are often disturbed individuals that try to use the pain and suffering in their lives in order to create humor. That reminds of this hypothetical situation that I'm sure has happened to us all: something bad has happened to you (you get injurred or end up embarrassing yourself) and someone tells you, "You'll be laughing about it tomorrow.".

Because of the well written script and smart direction here, we were able to see all of that clearly. Lenny often joked about the troubles that plagued his personal life. It was the only way he could stay sane. This movie touches on a lot of serious subjects (drugs, crime, marriage problems), but the film is also extremely funny. That is mostly a compliment to Lenny's humor, but hey I laughed a lot during the movie.

As usual, Dustin Hoffman was nothing short of brilliant here. He is one of the greatest actors ever and he displayed that here. The narrative of the film made the Hoffman performance even better. The film dramatizes some interviews with the loved ones of Lenny then intertwines those scenes with Lenny's (Hoffman) stand up and the main narrative. The way the stand up scenes were used was very similar to Seinfeld.

Hoffman's best scene took place near the end of the movie. The entire scene was done in one take. In it, Lenny was drugged up and performing on stage. He partially got through the act, but you knew something was going wrong. The acting by Hoffman was nothing short of amazing.

Lenny is an engrossing and funny biopic about interesting subject matter and an even more interesting man.