Punchline (2002, DVD)

Isn't stand-up comedy supposed to be funny? Well, the audience at the "Gas Station," the comedy club in the movie Punchline think the comedians are funny. Personally, the only thing I found more painful to watch than this tragedy set in the world of stand-up was the stand-up itself. The "comedians" here tell bad jokes, and are as unlikable doing their on-stage material as they are maladjusted backstage.

The unhappy stand-up comic is an extension of the cliche sad clown. Everyone knows that stand-up comics are the saddest and most maladjusted people in show business. They have the most horrible home life and the hardest time getting along.

Punchline is a tremendously pathetic movie in which a great deal of energy was obviously spent and from which all talent has faded. The movie stars Sally Field as a housewife and mother who dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian and Tom Hanks a failed medical student who comes from a family of doctors. That he couldn't make it in med school is okay, however, as he really wants to be a stand-up comedian and not a cardiologist. He is more experienced as a comic than Field having performed everynight for the last 18 months at the local comedy club. They meet there on a night when Field dies on stage and Hanks wows the audience. (The comedy club audience. No one on this side of the video screen will more than chuckle at any of him material.) He agrees to teach her "the ropes."

Field's character has other problems besides bad material and delivery. Her husband is not supportive of her performing aspirations. He is threatening to leave her and the kids.

The movie doesn't seem to know that these two aspiring comics both lack talent. The structure of the film is status quo for any of Sally Field's fans. She has lots of heart and drive and does what she knows is right despite what other people think. In the end, she gets what she wants and changes the minds of those who would have tried to thwart her.

One of my favorite actors, John Goodman, plays Field's husband. He begins the movie as a horrible monster of a man. By the end, he's just a big snuggly teddy-bear. Why or how the change happens is never really explained. There is no justification and no one tries to explain his change of heart. It's simply something that has to happen to tie up loose ends at the end of 123 long and excrutiating minutes.

A positive note can be made about the character of Romeo (Mark Rydell) a movie director and owner of the "Gas Station." His character seems to be a real pro in the performing field, and he has a screen presence that rescues the film when he is on screen. The rest of the people around him are all infantile.

Another problem is that this movie can't make up its mind to really take a tough look at what's going on. It needs more insight into the egos that are being dealt with and the drive to get ahead at any cost for most of the comics.

Punchline doesn't seem to know much about what it's trying to do, and a joke or film that doesn't know where it's going never gets the Punchline right.