Review of The King of Comedy (1982) by Rod S — 29 Mar 2010

I hear this movie often described as a 'dark comedy', however I didn't find anything comedic about it. It contains alot of leftover material from Scorcese's "Taxi Driver", however the insanity is different here because unlike "Taxi Driver" which focused on coping with isolation and loneliness, "The King of Comedy" is about relentlessly denying those feelings.

De Niro plays his character with cheer and passive-aggressiveness, and I don't know if that's attributed to a brilliant performance or that he just didn't know how to play a stand-up comedian.

But the character gets revealed to us not by dialogue or drama but a directing style that exchanges scenes of reality with scenes of dillusion until we can't tell which is which. An unexpectedly good, dramatic performance by Jerry Lewis who doesn't play his role like a TV personality but more like a businessman who's being bothered by ordinary people who want things they don't deserve.