To paraphrase the song by Charlie Chaplin: Watching "The Comedian," starring a game but straining Robert De Niro as a once-hot insult comic hitting the skids on the road to redemption, I tried to smile, though my heart was breaking.
The eerie unfunniness of the De Niro character’s routines, meant to be shocking yet funny and loaded with genital-related punchlines, gave me the cold creeps. Edie Falco (as the comic’s long-suffering manager) and Leslie Mann (as his friend, then lover) redeem as much of their scenes as is humanly possible. But it’s not their movie.
With a better script, this old-school insult comic could’ve been right up De Niro’s alley — a genial asterisk to the deliberately eerily unfunny funnyman he made so memorable in Martin Scorsese’s "The King of Comedy." But as directed by Taylor Hackford, "The Comedian" generates criminally little interest in its own protagonist, fictional comic Jackie Burke, born Jacob Burkowitz.
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Thirty years earlier, we’re told, Jackie starred in a hit TV sitcom called "Eddie’s Home," about a lovably loutish NYPD officer. Those days are gone. The present day finds Jackie settling for a suburban comedy club gig devoted to Nostalgia Night (Jimmie Walker of "Good Times" and Brett Butler of "Grace Under Fire" play themselves in cameos). During his stand-up routine, which blends a little Don Rickles with a little more Andrew Dice Clay, Jackie runs afoul of a videotaping heckler. The altercation becomes physical; the cellphone video goes viral; Jackie gets 30 days in the slammer plus community service.
Working a soup kitchen after his jail stint, the comic meets Harmony (Mann), the tough but dishy daughter of a Florida real estate magnate (Harvey Keitel), who takes an instant dislike to the well-worn comic keeping company with his daughter.
There’s more to the plot, including controversies involving Jackie’s lesbian niece’s wedding, and friction between Jackie and his brother (Danny De Vito) and harpy sister-in-law (Patti LuPone). But incident does not equal interest. The script, credited to producer Art Linson, Jeff Ross, Richard LaGravenese and Lewis Friedman, feels like nobody wrote it; it’s the wrong kind of tasteless, as in flavor-free. Director Hackford fails to finesse the mood swings, so when Jackie starts spilling excruciating family secrets in public, it’s simply confusing.
Here and there, "The Comedian" nails the insecurity and competitive savagery among Jackie and his ilk; it’s good to see Charles Grodin as a Friars Club honcho who steals jokes like Milton Berle used to. The funniest bit in the movie belongs to Mann. In the space of 15 or 20 seconds, she zigzags from rebuffing Jackie’s advances to giving into the idea of an "appointment" (not a "date," she specifies) with him, and the way she does it, through tears and bluster, it constitutes a mini-master-class in timing.
No doubt De Niro relished the chance to play a performer continually hassled by fans spouting a famous catchphrase. Imagine how often De Niro has had to endure "Taxi Driver" freaks coming up to him and asking: You talkin’ to me? It’s a start. But by the midpoint it’s clear: Everyone in "The Comedian" deserves a better movie than "The Comedian."
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
mjphillips@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @phillipstribune
"The Comedian" — 1.5 stars
MPAA rating: R (for crude sexual references and language throughout)
Running time: 1:59
Opens: Friday
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