MikePadgett.com / Reviews / Film / The King of Comedy

The King of Comedy

— Lewis lively, De Niro disturbing.”

Talking to the walls: De Niro as Rupert Pupkin
  • Director: Martin Scorsese
  • United States, 1983
  • 3 stars out of 5

Along with After Hours, The King of Comedy is one of Scorsese’s ‘forgotten movies’ and it’s his lowest grosser. That status alone adds a certain piquancy to what is certainly a unique and shadowy addition to the Scorsese oeuvre.

Robert De Niro plays Rupert Pupkin, a severely deluded but ostensibly harmless nut who’s desperate to hit the big time as a guest comedian on the talk show of his idol Jerry Langford, played with superb restraint by Jerry Lewis.

The King of Comedy is like those shrunken heads in the Pitt Rivers Museum: your curiosity draws you in, but the thing itself is toothless. Not funny enough for a comedy, not dark enough for a psycho-thriller – it’s precisely this imbalance that gives the movie its uneasy charm.

Originally published: February 13th, 2007 in Film

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