He doesn't have a demo tape and appears to have no regular gigs, instead just sits in his basement dreaming, so it is hard to empathise, but when fame as a stand-up comedian eludes Robert De Niro's idiosyncratic Rupert Pupkin, a citydweller as isolated and mad as Travis Bickle, he enlists the help of an unhinged friend (played with rabid relish by Sarah Bernhard) to kidnap tonight show host Jerry Langford, (played by Jerry Lewis essentially playing himself), in Scorsese's peculiar, darkly amusing comedy thriller that in the end says what: audacity over talent?
★★★☆☆
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