Day 362: The King of Comedy

Directed By- Martin Scorsese

Written By- Paul D. Zimmerman

Starring- Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Sandra Bernhard, Diahnne Abbott, Shelley Hack

Run Time- 1 hr. 44 min.

Critics Review- "Misunderstood by critics in 1983, this is one of the most incisive (and scary) movies about desperate desire to achieve fame in American society, and the shallow nature of pop culture; De Niro and Jerry Lewis are terrific."- Emanuel Levy "EmanuelLevy.Com"

Rotten Tomatoes Rating- Critics- 93% [CERTIFIED FRESH] Audience- 85%

Out of a possible 5 stars- 4 1/2 stars

My Review-

This just one of the movies that is about obsessed fans, and what some will do to get fame out of it, even if its for a different reason. De Niro's character just wants to be a famous comedy, not be famous for kidnapping Lewis' character which is different. It seems like a movie like this would have been a bigger hit today, than back in the 80s since it seems people are more obsessed over famous people now than ever. I rarely see De Niro do a comedy, and when he does he is really quite funny, even though this movie is also quite disturbing at the same time. I believe that Scorsese, De Niro, and Lewis were all right for the movie, since Lewis seemed like he was playing an almost movie version of himself dealing with a crazed fan, sort of. What made this movie work was it really seemed like Lewis' character despised De Niro as the movie progressed. I liked when De Niro does comedies such as this one because we get to see a different side to him other than his serious badass side like most of the films that he does, and I know that when he works with Scorsese it will be a great film. It was one of those films that seemed ahead of its times, showing that possibly one day that people will become obsessed with famous people or wanting to become famous, like De Niro's character Rupert wanted to be. I think the only problem I had with it is that I wish they would have used more of Bernhard's character, and showed what happened to Lewis's character at the end of the film. I really liked how they mixed Rupert's imagination with what was really happening, at first you could not tell if it was real or not then we found out that he was actually crazy, well just a wee bit crazy. Out of most of the films that were comedies from De Niro, and its just a few that I have seen this one has to be my favorite, it seems like De Niro can really let himself go in a comedy, such as this one. I decided to chose this one to watch today, because it is on the list of films to watch and also one of the Scorsese films I have not seen until today.  So has a Scorsese fan this one is one of my favorites from him, even though they're still quite a few I still need to see from him.