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Don't Believe the Hype

Crappy film

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Heckler, which was directed in 2007 by Michael Addis, is likely Jamie Kennedy's biggest achievement in his entire career. The movie is remarkable for how much of a deconstruction of the documentary genre it is. Addis' study, with its 79 minute run-time starts turning towards psychological drama territory not even halfway through. At the centre of it is the above mentioned Jamie Kennedy, who is on his journey to achieve character development by growing past his critics' opinions. Ultimately he tries selling us his new found self-respect by burning all the reviews he got for his work, which due to his unconvincingness adds a new layer to the complexity of the movie. This nature of the film truly makes it worth giving a shot.That being said, the movie is not a good documentary. It has a severe case of cherry-picking. All of it is set up to make "the artist" the victim. While it's true, that the heckler phenomenon is heavily negative in nature, the focus quickly shifts towards critics, who aren't always just set on giving people a bad reputation. Some of the celebrities interviewed did try to not put criticism into a radically negative light, but the movie overall still seems to have a pretty negative opinion towards it. Best example is how the interviews are executed; actors and comedians always talk directly into the camera with no one questioning their opinions, while all the critics talk directly to Kennedy, whose discussions are strongly shrouded in him playing the victim card all the way through. The critics, who appear also aren't too representative to their own kind, since they chose to interview only those, whose reviews ranged from strongly negative to flat out hateful.With all I've written considered, you probably won't learn more about the heckler-phenomenon from this movie, than you would if you went into an actual comedy show. Not published

I have harbored a secret dream of writing some stand up material for years, but being a normally insecure human being, i was usually deterred by the thought of getting heckled offstage. I never wrote a word of it out.Tonight i watched this movie, and it truly inspired me to try. The way the different kinds of heckler, and reactions, was broken down, and the explanations of the how and why, was very inspiring.i will write my first, most likely awful material tonight. And when it is done i will go find a tiny open mic to sign up on.I feel cloaked in comedic kevlar, and i needed that, a lot more than i needed the funny material. That will come in time. I have to learn first, and part of that is jerkwads. I accept this. And now i feel a little more prepared. I am sure that i am truly, not. But im going to take some massive action. and the scenes of this film will play in my head, i imagine, quite a bit.Thank you. i am sure i will be returning to this film, in the coming time, in lieu of the whole naked fetal position feces thing howie mandel mentioned.Thanks for this. And if you want to try but are worried... watch this damn movie.

I went into this movie expecting an 80 minute documentary on hecklers. Instead, what I got was a documentary that talked about hecklers for 30 minutes, and spent the rest of the time talking about critics.The first half was, despite none of the comedians making me laugh, interesting. It gave insight on why a heckler does what they do. It also gave a pretty good look at how the comedians could, sometimes, be in the wrong. (Hitting them with a guitar? That definitely was a little too far.)Then, around the 35 minute mark (or so), the focus shifted to "other types of hecklers" - critics. First off, I don't think anybody really cares about critics. I mean, I've often wondered why a heckler would do such a thing, but I always assumed (most) critics were just crabby ***holes. And you what the movie did? It just confirmed it for 40 minutes straight.Second off, why did they stop talking about hecklers? It was interesting enough. If they couldn't come up with any other things to say about hecklers, then maybe they should've ended it at this point.Third off, the whole critic segment seemed like hippie crap to me. Yeah, yeah, they said "constructive criticism," but I still got the idea that these people just don't want to hear anything negative. Especially Jamie Kennedy. Why on Earth did he think Son Of The Mask was "pushing the envelope," or however he put it? Because there was a talking baby? Okay, I haven't actually seen Son Of The Mask, but the trailers are clearly making it out to be what I thought it would be - a brainless comedy. Plus, when these critics gave him reasons - albeit unspecific ones - all he resorted to was asking them about when the last time they had sex was. What does that have to do with why they don't like your act?Overall, I would suggest the part that is actually about the title group of people. When they start talking about critics, don't bother. Except maybe for Henry Winkler's take on things.

If Heckler is anything for Jamie Kennedy, the film's prime target as someone who has gotten enough heckling for a whole night of comedy acts, it's a feasible and marginal catalyst for all the hate he has gotten over the years from not only critics but people who just seem cold to the idea of "accepting him." Having not seen many of his works, only Malibu's Most Wanted which wasn't particularly compelling but I've without a doubt seen worse, I feel the man is just the public eye's punching bag. He took the throne from Pauly Shore and Tom Green (both men appearing in this film as well) and decides to release his anger and frustration to the hecklers of the world.A "heckler" is someone with intentions of curbing a person's current formal state. The term is commonly associated with comedy acts, when one arrogant loudmouth decides it would be fun and brilliant to disrupt the performer by yelling something unnecessary at them like, "you suck" or something along those lines. The first twenty minutes of this seventy-nine minute documentary focus directly on those kind of people, and have a variety of comedians such as Arsenio Hall, David Cross, Louie Anderson, and Lewis Black weigh in on the concept and how they've dealt with a heckler in their career. The remainder of the documentary takes the questionable turn as it then begins to attack film critics and how miserable, sulky, pretentious, idiotic, lazy, evil, and out of touch they are if they rate a product harshly. As an aspiring film critic myself, I've heard the argument frequently that if you've never made a film you have no right to criticize it. It's a valid point, but by saying that, you're stripping someone of their basic right to have an opinion. Do I need to be president to openly dislike one of his mandates/laws? Do I need to be a chef to say I didn't like this person's food? Do I need to be a landscaper to say I didn't like the look of this yard? Do I need to be a website designer to say I don't like the look of a particularly website? By saying that one is not qualified to state their opinion or look at a film deeply, picking out its flaws and examining its layers pretty much means that one can not have an opinion on pretty much anything unless they've done or experienced it themselves. It's not a sustainable point. One needs to accept the fact that by putting out a piece of work that the ones who pay money to view it in some way, shape, or form have a right to voice their opinion on it. I'm not condoning the action of listlessly shouting at a performer, but everyone has and should have the right to give a mature opinion on something regardless of it being positive or negative. I would've thought many of these comedians, doing a job that is very public and very open, knew that ahead of time.I'm also not huge on the way this film compares hecklers to critics. First off, comparing film/media critics to some random, ignorant scrub yelling insults to a performing act is a facile, invalid point. One party professionally evaluates art and the meanings it could spawn, while the other gives a very immature, childish statement in an act of unnecessary disrespect. They're incomparable, except in the regard that they could potentially make the party at hand feel bad about themselves, which is not my personal goal when writing/publishing a review. When I give a poor review to a film, I give it to the film and not to those involved. I didn't think I needed to attach a disclaimer like this when I began writing.Chunks of the short feature are devoted to other little ways different men in the business of film respond to criticism. Noted director Uwe Boll staged a boxing match between him and his critics, which I honestly can't believe. Unique it is, but if someone didn't like your film, what will make them like it if you beat them bloody in a ring, and what does that say about your acceptance of dissent? Eli Roth states the "death of film" are focus groups, little screenings of the first/second/third cuts of films where a private audience (usually made up of the film's target demographic) is invited to watch the film and voice what they like and didn't like. Instead of writing it off as a way for more people to bitch and moan about what they didn't like, filmmakers should think of these groups as ways to not only improve on their own work but connect with their demographic in a stronger way.While it appears my criticism with Heckler's negative portrait of film critics runs a mile deep, this is nonetheless an interesting documentary, that serves as much more than Kennedy's therapeutic method of coping with sour critics/public. I just kind of wish any of the talents involved would've recognized that their attitude towards critics comes off as bitter and angry, when it's almost cemented in the job description for an actor/comedian. And I'd like to challenge Lewis Black on the fact that when someone's young they do not want to be a critic of any kind. At age five I knew that I wanted to be someone who wrote essays and reviews of films, giving ideas and different views of the medium.Full, more complete review on http://stevethemovieman.proboards.com