Planet Sick-Boy: http://www.sick-boy.com "We Put the SIN in Cinema"
© Copyright 2002 Planet Sick-Boy. All Rights Reserved.
Though it's very funny, the trailer for Comedian contains approximately zero seconds of footage from the film. I thought this would be an important fact to mention, as the old bait-and-switch routine may not give you grounds to ask the theatre manager for your money back after you realize the film isn't at all what you'd thought it would be (read: funny). Comedian is, instead, a documentary about two stand-up comedians trying to turn their witty ruminations into a successful comedy routine. The only reason you've heard of the film is because one of those comedians is Jerry Seinfeld. The film was made by Christian Charles, who worked with Seinfeld on those American Express commercials.
After retiring all of his material in the 1998 I'm Telling You for the Last Time tour (which you may have seen on HBO), Seinfeld finds himself in the unusual position of starting his career over from scratch. We see him trying out new material in dank New York comedy clubs, and we hear people laugh at said material. But Seinfeld has always been a mediocre comedian (doubters should watch Curb Your Enthusiasm to see where the real creativity of Seinfeld lay). Audiences are laughing at him because he's Jerry Seinfeld, not because he's particularly funny. At one point, they laugh at him because he forgets his own material.
Meanwhile, Comedian also shows an up-and-coming comic named Orny Adams, who seems poised to really make a name for himself. The self-deprecating and extremely unlikable comedian gets tips from Seinfeld and even lands the managerial skills of George Shapiro, who is apparently the Vince Lombardi of stand-up supervisors. The more his reputation grows, the angrier Adams becomes, culminating in appearances on The Late Show and at a prestigious Montreal comedy festival that make him look like he's about to embark on a crime spree.
The point of Comedian is, I think, to illustrate how difficult it is to craft a routine into a good set (the action in the film unfolds over a year, and it takes Seinfeld that long to make his stuff happen). Since most of the stand-up acts we see on television are extremely polished, getting a peek at this aspect of the industry is kind of interesting. It's also entertaining to see big names like Chris Rock, Colin Quinn and Garry Shandling rub elbows backstage while they eat bad bar food in the dark.
But the following things are not at all entertaining: The bad sound, the lack of climax and, worst of all, watching Seinfeld (who is also one of the film's producers) do everything he can to look like a good guy. There's the obligatory shot of him bouncing his baby on his knee, along with the scenes where he offers advice to Adams, even though we can all tell he probably wouldn't speak to the guy if the cameras weren't trained on him. Are we supposed to feel bad about him being uncomfortable going on stage (which is his job, by the way) to earn very tiny amounts of money as he wings his way to work on private jets and stays in five-star hotels? Comedian works much better as the unusual buddy film, with the older, half-retired guy with years of experience (Seinfeld), and the cocky loudmouth who thinks he's the greatest thing since canned spaghetti (Adams). Trouble is, Adams all but disappears for most of the film's second half...to make way for more Seinfeld, of course.
1:21 - R for profanity
========== X-RAMR-ID: 33257 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 805289 X-RT-TitleID: 1115955 X-RT-SourceID: 595 X-RT-AuthorID: 1146 X-RT-RatingText: 5/10
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews