The Jimmy Show

Name: The Jimmy Show
Director: Frank Whaley
Released: 2002

Synopsis

A failed New Jersey inventor embarks on a career as a standup comic, turns to drink, and labors to keep his family together.

50
New York Post
Whaley gives an earnest performance, especially when he's articulating his frustrations during his monologues. But it's all relentlessly glum. The film, like Jimmy's routines, could use a few good laughs.
50
Village Voice
Backed by a strong supporting cast, Whaley makes Jimmy a vivid character, but he never achieves anything like the tragic grandeur of a Willy Loman. He's at once too earnest and too unappealing.
50
New York Daily News
The movie is as unpleasant as its hero, and the film audience gets no more for its money than the customers at the Laughing Stock. Still, watching Whaley take Jimmy down his tortured path has some morbid appeal -- like a train wreck in progress.
40
The New York Times
The kind of movie that is a must to avoid on a bad day. Even on a good one, it could send you into a funk.
40
TV Guide Magazine
Whaley's determination to immerse you in sheer, unrelenting wretchedness is exhausting.
30
Variety
Pic has a stagy, boxed-in feel. Both visually and energetically, it suggests something that has been done onstage to the point of mechanized repetition. And even though Whaley is supposed to be playing a disillusioned character, it's the actor himself who seems fatigued and over-rehearsed.