The Comedian
Starring Robert De Niro, Leslie Mann
Directed by Taylor Hackford
A raunchy comic goes searching for a career comeback in Taylor Hackford’s The Comedian. Veteran actor Robert De Niro – looking for a resurgence himself after last year’s disastrously distasteful Dirty Grandpa – plays Jackie Burke, a former TV sitcom star, known for a signature one-liner, who spends most of his time making a pittance for performing stand-up in dive bars around New York.
After an unfortunate encounter with a heckler during a set, he winds up doing community service at a local homeless shelter. Burke soon meets Harmony Schiltz (Mann) and the two strike up a friendship that spills over into a somewhat awkward romance following a night of alcoholic imbibing.
The movie plays out rather predictably at this point. Yet despite its share of groan-inducing, eye-rolling humour, it somehow manages to provide a bit of redemption for De Niro and marks a strong showcase for Mann’s expert timing.
The flick also boasts a recognizable cast, including a scene-stealing Danny DeVito, Edie Falco, Charles Grodin, Cloris Leachman, and a sleazy Harvey Keitel as Harmony’s father. (It’s hard to avoid Taxi Driver nostalgia during the scenes De Niro and Keitel share.)
Some of the gags in The Comedian fall flat, but much of the humour is decidedly blue and makes for explicit laughs. Several real-life comics who play themselves (such as Brett Butler, Hannibal Buress and Jessica Kirson) lend legitimacy to the backdrop, and Hackford even manages to craft a subtle, if mediocre, love letter to the Big Apple’s stand-up scene.
