Robert De Niro again, this time charging through the role of Jackie Burke, a once-mighty sitcom star who decades later has difficulty making the rent as a put-down comic. Any script with Roastmaster General Jeff Ross’s name attached can’t help but yield a few mean-spirited howls. (Included is a reenactment of that legendary night in Friar’s Club history when Harry "Parkyakarkus" Einstein, aka Albert Brooks’s father, dropped dead in mid-roast.) There’s a conceivable romantic subplot involving a woman (an exceptional Leslie Mann) Jackie met while performing community service for punching out a heckler. De Niro gets back to acting, swearing off the focking patented funny faces and building a character who’s more than just a bad-humored comic. Scanning the various audiences for familiar faces is time well spent. But other than watching Jackie wriggle through one uncomfortable gig after another, Taylor Hackford’s The Comedian ultimately has nowhere to go. With Edie Falco, Harvey Keitel, Charles Grodin, and Lois Smith (2016) — Scott Marks
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