Review of The Comedian (2016) by Richard B — 08 Feb 2017

Proper Perspective: This is not quite the "real and gritty tale" of the life of a stand-up comedian and not the "life is peachy" story that most of these flicks tend to be. The Comedian is a hybrid mix of a Judd Apatow movie with the comedic flavor of The Roast Master Jeff Ross...

Official Synopsis: A look at the life of an aging insult comic named Jack Burke.

Plot: In a nutshell this is a movie that follows a semi-famous comedian who was on a beloved sitcom decades before and is trying to do things his way, regain his name, and keep working in a world that wants him to be the character from the sitcom still. Jackie Burke or "Eddie" (Robert De Niro) gets busted for assault leading to some time in prison then community service, where he meets Harmony Schiltz (Leslie Mann) and the two of them begin a friendship that is give-and-take.

The two initially use each other for what they are good for on the service, Jackie wants the younger hot Harmony with him at his nieces wedding and Harmony wants Jackie to be a birthday gift for her overbearing father who loved Jackie's show years back. A match made in heaven.

Along the way there are good supporting characters in Jackie's younger brother Jimmy (Danny DeVito), his agent Miller (Edie Falco), and Harmony's overbearing father Mac (Harvey Keitel).

Take: All of the performances were very good and this movie checked off all the boxes of an Apatow flick with a really funny cast, real life comedy, pushing the envelope with a subject, and running probably 20-30 minutes too long. I'll come back to that in a minute. It also hit the Jeff Ross button perfectly with great insult humor and laugh out loud jokes throughout the movie.

I really liked how they showed the real life burden of being famous and constantly being poked and prodded to perform and be funny. Jackie is not treated like a person, other than by Harmony, who still in ways uses Jackie for her own personal gain.

Family uses you. The public uses you. And over time you become hardened to the world and treat everyone like they are pricks, then you use everyone in your life because you know no other way.

The run time is probably my only complaint about this movie. Coming in I was not expecting Oscar performances or a plot that would reinvent the wheel of comedies. Just be funny. The Comedian is definitely a very funny movie, but then it peters into the Apatow Zone of staying its welcome just a bit longer than necessary. The movie went into the overly serious zone and then back to the comedy and into the serious zone again, running longer than it needed to as a comedy about a comic.

This is a Taylor Hackford movie (Ray, The Devil's Advocate, An Officer and a Gentleman) not an Apatow movie. Jeff Ross helped write. There is more good than bad with this movie despite the run time and the tone flip-flopping between "funny movie about insult comedians" and "self-serious movie about a guy who sabotages himself.".

Recommendation: If you are a fan of Apatow style comedies or Jeff Ross zingers or both, this is a flick for you. Otherwise, I'd suggest checking out Mike Birbiglia's 2016 movie "Don't Think Twice" for an overall better take on the life and times of people trying to make it in the world of comedy.

I'm sure in time the montages will become YouTube clips, but the roast-style stand-up bits in this movie are gold, especially the wedding scene...