The Comedian

Despite, or more probably, because of, its attention-grabbing cast, The Comedian is a disappointing film. At the core of the problem is the script about a cantankerous has-been once benchmark comedian who, to the untutored eye at least seems indistinguishable from, if not worse than, any run-of-the-mill potty-mouthed comedian of today.

Robert De Niro (who demonstrated some real comedic chops when he played Rupert Pupkin in Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy forty years ago) plays Jackie Burke, once an ‘80s sitcom star but now on the bottom of the standup comedy circuit. At one of his gigs he assaults a heckler and ends up doing community service at a soup kitchen. There he meets Harmony Schultz (Leslie Mann) whose father, Mac (Harvey Keitel), is a somewhat crooked businessman. Time served, Jack is trying to reinvent himself professionally in the age of social media with the help of his agent (Edie Falco) and his brother (Danny DeVito). He strikes up a relationship with Harmony but even this he manages to spoil.

Why DeNiro agreed to play Jackie and how Hackford managed to assemble such a stellar cast, quite a few who have worked with DeNiro before (including Charles Grodin who appears late in the film), is a mystery as the only things that saves it are the performances and the spark between the players. DeNiro, of course, is always watchable but the shining star here is Leslie Mann as a quietly despairing yet cynical single who finds distraction from her woes in Jackie’s misanthropic schtick.

Beyond this The Comedian wanders hither and thither, from Jackie’s crummy digs to his lesbian niece’s New York wedding to a gated community of retirees in Florida before resolving in a desperately sentimental and completely unconvincing way in a completely unnecessary film.

FYI: If you happened to like this then you’ll probably enjoy Standing Up Falling Down (2019) in which Billy Crystal’s alcoholic dermatologist befriends a would-be comedian playing some of the same New York venues as Jackie.

 

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