‘Comedian’ is De Niro’s best showcase in years

Robert De Niro works a lot, and contrary to what some people like to say about his later career, he is always better, usually much better, than his roles require.

[...] his showcases this century have not been ideal, a mix of big roles in weak movies, small roles in better films and other roles that are amusing, sometimes in a self-referential way, but that don’t allow him to grow.

[...] “The Comedian” is something special, a good movie that gives one of our best actors a chance to show us something new and to remind us that the Robert De Niro story is not entirely written.

Some even resort to showing us the audience’s reaction in a nightclub as a way of telling us that the comedian is going over well.

All the movie’s finer points — of audience response, of interaction, of the dances between people — are conveyed with a specificity so expert that it seems offhand.

[...] the dynamic is odd, with lots of unacknowledged hostility, and very fluid, changing imperceptibly as the businessman’s anger goes from unconscious to conscious.

[...] it’s a simple scene, but the direction and the acting are so precise that it’s a minor thing of beauty.

Danny DeVito as Jackie’s long-suffering brother; Patti LuPone as Jackie’s sister-in-law, who can barely contain her hatred of him — and then can’t contain it; Edie Falco, as Eddie’s agent; Charles Grodin, as a comedian from the old days; Cloris Leachman as a 95-year-old comic actress on her last legs; and several comedians, including Jimmie Walker and Brett Butler, as themselves.

[...] special attention should be paid to Mann, who more than holds her own opposite De Niro.

“The Comedian” is the story of a comic’s career and of his personal life, and despite having been written by a committee of four, it has cohesion and the power to surprise.