From Geoff Berkshire’s 11.12 Variety review: “Robert De Niro’s fans may be hoping for a spiritual successor to his classic Martin Scorsese dark comedy The King of Comedy, but The Comedian falls much closer to actor’s forgettable showbiz satire also penned by writer-producer Art Linson, What Just Happened?  In fact, that’s a question viewers may ask themselves almost any time De Niro’s character, Jackie Berkowitz, grabs a mic.

“There’s a strange disconnect between the scenes of Jackie awkwardly performing comedy routines, which play like De Niro gamely reading material on Saturday Night Live, and the more authentic moments of Jackie going about his life as a seventysomething man who still has a lot left to prove. Even though De Niro never quite sells the stand-up, the movie still may have worked if it surrounded him with characters worthy of the actors playing them.”