I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

I remember seeing Bill Hicks perform on various HBO specials in the early - mid '80's. I'd seen him a couple of times on Letterman, and didn't think any more about him, until I had heard that he died at the age of 32 from pancreatic cancer.I'll admit, I was never a big fan of his. I thought that other comedians were doing somewhat similar material, and doing it better. So I watched this "documentary" to see if I could learn what I was missing or not "getting" about Hicks.I'm not sure I was missing anything. This documentary does a fine job of telling you about his origins, and his life and the people he knew. But it does not inform you as to what he believed drove his comedy. It also doesn't discuss the inner demons that he fought or explain why, after working so many years to build a career, he would just walk away from it, just because his act was edited.His "rants" were not the stuff of Lenny Bruce or George Carlin. His talk of drugs was not as clever as Robin Williams or Sam Kinison. So the viewer is left still not able to understand why people love his comedy.The film is told thru stop action animation, which is clever at first, but gets old real fast. It is hard to understand who is doing the talking, because actual live faces or names are rarely flashed on the screen.On the whole, I'm glad I saw the film, but very disappointed with not having any greater insight to the man after having viewed it.6 out of 10

It seems like the other reviewers are giving this documentary high marks because it is about a comedian they love. That is a mistake. This is a poor documentary. This documentary consists of friends of Bill's talking about him while we look at old pictures scrolling across the screen. This is occasionally interrupted by 5-10 seconds of actual video of Bill or one of his cohorts.To me, this fails as a documentary, it is purely a fan piece. If you love Bill Hicks now, then this will make you love him more. If you are not a fan, then this will make you avoid his work as much as possible. From what I know, Bill was a very thoughtful and talented person, it's too bad someone as thoughtful as him didn't make the film about him.

"The only downside to listening to Bill Hicks is that, once you've done so, almost every other stand-up comedian will sound like a waste of your time and an insult to your intelligence." - Andrew Mueller "I thought he was the most intelligent, most liberating social and political comic I had ever heard." - John Cleese Though he died in 1994, Bill Hicks' reputation has been growing steadily amongst comedians and comedy aficionados. Like Dean, Cobain, Marley, Morrison, Lennon etc, Hicks' death immortalised him, turned him into a hero, a microphone legend for the disillusioned youth of the 1990s.But to his fans, Hicks was more than an iconoclast. They saw him as prophet, a truth-teller whose message of love, hope, sense and reason lurked closely behind an outer facade of anger and cynicism. Describing himself as "Noam Chomsky with dick jokes", Hicks offered a strange blend of high brow and low brow comedy. He was the Holden Caulfield of stand up, exuding a dangerous and subversive cool. Hicks may once have described humanity as "a virus with shoes", but Hicks was never cynical - just angry and perpetually disappointed, as any compassionate, decent person should be.But it wasn't only his mixture of intellect and humour that made Hicks popular. Everyone loves an underdog, and Hicks was the ultimate showbiz underdog. With cancelled TV shows, censored television appearances and 12 years in the wilderness working in small clubs and empty bars, he struggled to catch a big break. He was hardworking and adored by fellow comedians, but at a time when American conservatism was at its strongest, homeland audiences simply failed to "get" Hicks' act. Then, just when stardom came knocking, Hicks developed pancreatic cancer. His audience didn't know it, but he was dying, his awareness of his impending death tingeing his later shows with a strange sense of melancholy. To some, Hicks' late shows are the closest stand up's ever come to a kind of spiritual comedy. And then Hicks died.Over the years, numerous other comedians would borrow from and be influenced by Hicks. George Carlin's entire late career emulates Hicks, though Carlin substitutes apathy and bitter disenchantment for Hicks hopefulness. Lewis Black, Doug Stanhope, Jon Stewart and a bevy of other comedians (including super-hack Denis Leary) would adopt Hicks' trademarks, mannerisms and intonations to great effect. And though dead, Hicks himself would slowly begin to gain fame. VHS bootlegs and late night HBO airings would spread his name, before the internet generation, and the second Gulf War, popped him back into the limelight. Having broken free of what he called "purple veined dick joke material" and developed a more politically and socially aware philosophy over a decade earlier, the now dead Hicks began to appeal to the jaded, twenty first century audiences of Generation Youtube. It also helped that his rants against the first Gulf War and George Bush Senior translated equally well to Gulf War 2 and George Bush 2.Hicks wasn't political in any complicated, dangerous or sophisticated way, but his scepticism about war, the arms industry, his libertarian view on drugs, his anti-corporate musings, his mocking of the stupid and/or ill-educated, bashing of presidents, love for tobacco etc, were novel on the stand up circuit at the time. Hicks' world-view – we are all energy, money and status are meaningless distractions, authenticity of feeling is paramount, embrace love, not fear – basically made him a hippie disguised as a punk or anarchist. And of course he bashed Rick Astley (of Rick Roll fame) long before anyone else did. Throw in a paedophilic satanic alter ego called Goat Boy, and you had one unique comedian.Directed by Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas, "American: The Bill Hicks Story" is an excellent documentary which has the hard task of making Bill's childhood years interesting, and chartering his long, lonely years on the road. The film consists of interviews with Hicks' family, associates and childhood pals, but the dialogue is sculpted such that the film plays less like a documentary and more like a moving 3 act tragedy. Coupled with this is an impressive style which revokes talking heads in favour for an animation technique which brings to life photographs of Hicks and his circle of friends. Aesthetically, I've never seen a documentary look quite like this.The film touches upon Hicks' childhood, his strict Baptist parents, his early days in comedy clubs, his fondness for Woody Allen and Richard Pryor, the incredibly early age at which he started comedy and his transformation from clean cut comic to ticked off alcoholic. More than this, the films shows why Hicks became the comedians' comedian. He was never sullied by Hollywood success, he was never given the opportunity to sell out, his life was cut short before he got stale and his career coincided with the age of the camcorder, all factors which contributed to his mythologization.8.9/10 – Whether you find Hicks to be good, great or overrated (he was probably a bit of all three), this remains a sad but entertaining doc. Fans may want to check out "Bill Hicks: Agent Of Evolution" and "American Scream: the Bill Hicks story", two books which to a better job at delving into Hicks' life.

Watching recordings of Hicks, I am impressed at how his stand up shifts from vulgar bathroom humor to such profound social commentary. He truly was unique and ahead of his time. I guess it figures then his life was taken at such an early age. That seems to be the pattern we see in history with great thinkers (Ghandi, Jesus, etc). When I hear him speak, I caught myself saying, "He should've been president!" Instead he was regulated to doing comedy in two-bit clubs in the redneck south. Also of not is the wonderful picture-animation technique, which I have not personally seen before. It helped to fill in the gaps left by not having the titular character being present for an interview. See it and learn something.Your father didn't die for a flag. He died for the symbol that the flag represented, which is the freedom to burn the flag. -Hicks