Waste of time

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Excellent but underrated film

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

"Punchline" is interesting, but not interesting enough. This movie is awfully one-sided. And it also doesn't have any ambiguity. The only character in this movie that does any real disagreeing is the John Goodman character. And yet, I expected him to yell, but he doesn't. Make him grouchy, and you might have a character, no matter how relevant to the plot, that works. And don't even get me started on the casting of Sally Field as a comedian. Seriously? Sally Field as a stand-up comedian? What were the filmmakers thinking? Why not cast someone Tom Hanks's age? Some of the audience in the movie may be laughing, but I didn't find myself laughing too much. And you probably won't either. **1/2 out of ****

A 'dramedy' about stand-up comedy written and directed by David Seltzer, who shows no wistfulness or whimsy for show-biz--for him, it's all about the anxiety of getting a performance right. Tom Hanks has acting talent to spare, yet he does not possess the right timing to be convincing as a stand-up comic (he's all fired up, but he's firing blanks). Sally Field fares somewhat better as a housewife/amateur comedienne who looks to Tom for advice and finds herself a little smitten; her routine on-stage isn't convincing either, but Field's gumshun saves her (she's likable despite the character being a cut-out). John Goodman (as Field's husband) has made a career out of playing down-to-earth, amiable guys; though he's unable to really shine with this shallow material, his low-keyed, self-effacing acting style brings out the best in Seltzer's formulaic impulses--he's the most pleasant part of the film. The writing is so purposefully sour, one squirms through the jokes as much as through the drama. The movie's main purpose is to show us the dark side of comedy...but who wants to see that? *1/2 from ****

Spoilers herein.Filmmakers like to tinker with genres. That's the most direct and easy path to cleverness. One template is to make two genres into characters, then to embody them in people. When the people interact, you have a battle of film genres. When the people are alone, you have the genre in its normal form. Lynch took this to extremes with "Blue Velvet" of the year or two before. Although the craft is far less here, the ambition is equally advanced.On the one hand, we have a simple date movie: charming Sally (with her charming girls) has a marriage dilemma. There's some charming humor with making dinner. There's some minor threat to all this sweetness (the threat represented by the big, bad Church), even (gasp!!!) a bad hairdo. But loving husband comes through in the end. Sally is perfect for this, our prototype of absolute earnestness, moving through Lucille redheadedness.On the other hand we have a genre that has exploded in the past decade: the reflexive film where the performances are about performances, the skits are about skits, the character is schizoid because the position of the actor is also, simultaneously playing the performed and the performer. Here it is a standup comedian whose life and performance are confused. Sally is an archetype but she is also a performer so she finds herself sharing the stage, even contesting the stage with Hanks. Naturally she doesn't need to win, and her genre resolves as planned.Hanks does need to win. He lives in two layers: the madness of the performer and the madness of the performance: a commonly sought situation for intelligent actors. I call this folding. The whole film is constructed around one scene, the scene in the diner where Sally distances her genre from Hanks; genre and (because he is layered) his character. Watch him try the inside-outside acting shifts that Jack Nicholson invented. Watch him quote one of the most influential films in the folded films movement (for Hollywood), "Singing in the Rain." Watch him even try a few Brando mannerisms.Its a pretty brilliant idea. And it is pretty inspired and risky acting. Hanks has since become a joke, When he says he made only three good movies, I am certain he has this one in mind. Actually, his thread is bungled by the writer/director. There?s a bad decision in introducing his character with an anatomy test. And his material doesn't match his character: when comedy is a defense against life it is different than lots of what he does, excepting the "hate stylist" notion.But he really does try here, and it is an intelligent notion.Ted?s Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.

PUNCHLINE (1988) *** Sally Field, Tom Hanks, John Goodman, Mark Rydell, Paul Mazursky, Damon Wayans, Taylor Negron, Barry Sobel, Max Anderson, George Wallace. Uneven approach to the world of professional stand-up comedy with mixed results: namely Field as a Polish housewife comic wannabe and Hanks as a seasoned yet emotionally troubled comedian (deftly blending comedy and drama in this, one of his breakthrough performances, particularly his near breakdown on stage) facing stardom at a club showcase for talent and a possible road to stardom.