George Lopez Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Blue Beetle,’ starring Xolo Maridueña, Adriana Barraza, Damían Alcázar, Raoul Max Trujillo, Susan Sarandon and George Lopez

August 16, 2023

by Carla Hay

Xolo Maridueña in “Blue Beetle” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/DC Comics)

Directed by Ángel Manuel Soto

Some language in Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in the fictional U.S. city of Palmera City, the sci-fi/fantasy/action film “Blue Beetle” (based on the DC Comics character) features a Latin and white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Recent college graduate Jaime Reyes has his body invaded by a super-powered beetle scarab, and he becomes the superhero Blue Beetle, battling his evil former boss who wants the scarab to create an oppressive army of robotic enforcers.

Culture Audience: “Blue Beetle” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of superhero movies, the film’s headliners and adventurous stories about underrepresented people who are the stories’ protagonists.

Elpidia Carrillo, George Lopez, Xolo Maridueña, Belissa Escobedo and Damián Alcázar in “Bue Beetle” (Photo by Hopper Stone/Warnet Bros. Pictures)

“Blue Beetle” sometimes gets trapped in a familiar superhero formula, but the movie’s comedic charm, rollicking style and authentic chemistry among the cast members are a winning combination. As an origin story, “Blue Beetle” won’t rank among the very best for superhero movies based on DC Comics, because there are a few too many superhero movie stereotypes in “Blue Beetle’s” action scenes. However, “Blue Beetle” has enough uniqueness and charisma in its characters that will give this movie a loyal fan base.

Directed by Ángel Manuel Soto and written by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, “Blue Beetle” tells the story of 22-year-old Jaime Reyes (played by Xolo Maridueña), an optimistic recent college graduate who has returned to his hometown of Palmera City, a fictional U.S. city based partially on El Paso Texas. DC Comics’ “Blue Beetle” stories have more than one person who is the character of Blue Beetle: archaeologist Dan Garrett (a character that debuted in 1939); inventor Ted Kord (debuted in 1966); and Jaime Reyes (debuted in 2006), a Mexican American who lives in El Paso.

In the “Blue Beetle” movie, Jaime (who is the first person in his family to graduate from college) has come back home to live in a family household that is going through some drastic changes. Jaime lives with his supportive parents Alberto Reyes (played by Damían Alcázar) and Rocio Reyes (played by Elpidia Carrillo); Alberto’s sassy mother Nana Reyes (played by Adriana Barraza); Jaime’s 17-year-old outspoken sister Milagro “Millie” Reyes (played by Belissa Escobedo); and Alberto’s eccentric brother Rudy Reyes (played by George Lopez).

Soon after arriving home, Jaime finds out that the family will be moving out of the house in the near future because the family can no longer afford the house rent, which has “tripled” due to gentrification. The family’s auto body shop is going out of business. Alberto is also recovering from a recent heart attack. Jaime is shocked to hear this news and asks why his family didn’t tell him sooner. They say it’s because they didn’t want anything to distract Jaime from his studies at school.

Jaime is hopeful that his college degree will help him get a job that pays enough to get the family out of these financial problems. He’s also hoping to go to law school someday. “I’ll get the money to save this place,” Jaime confidently tells Milagro. She isn’t so sure this goal will be as easy as Jaime thinks it will be. In the meantime, Jaime and Milagro work in sanitation and groundskeeping at Kord Industries, a massively successful technology corporation whose specialty is security.

The leader of Kord Industries is the ruthless and cruel Victoria Kord (played by Susan Sarandon), who took over the company after her brother Ted Kord disappeared. Ted inherited the company from his father. Victoria is still bitter and jealous that Ted got this inheritance. The opening scene of “Blue Beetle” shows Victoria and some of her minions discovering something near an asteroid that has fallen on Earth. Victoria gleefully says, “I’ve been looking for this for 15 years!”

Viewers later see that what they found is a blue beetle (about the size of a hand) called the Scarab, which has extraordinary powers and a mind of its own. Victoria wants the Scarab for a new Kord Industries invention: One Man Army Corps, a group of super-powered robots described as “the future of private policing.” Victoria’s brooding, hulking henchman named Conrad Carpax (played by Raoul Max Trujillo) is her most-trusted right-hand man to do her dirty work. Victoria’s leading scientist who works for her is Dr. Sanchez (played by Harvey Guillén), a long-suffering employee who experiences some of Victoria’s noticeable racism.

Not everyone is happy with Victoria’s plans for One Man Army Corps. Ted’s smart and independent daughter Jenny Kord (played by Bruna Marquezine), who is in her early 20s and is originally from Brazil, is the complete opposite of Victoria, when it comes to their outlooks on life. Jenny cares about humanity, the environment, and having socially responsible and ethical business practices. Jenny suspects but can’t prove that Victoria is behind her father Ted’s disappearance. (Jenny’s mother died years ago.)

Over the course of the movie, Jenny and Victoria clash in a number of ways. Anything that Victoria wants to do, Jenny wants to dismantle. Jenny isn’t afraid to openly defy her domineering aunt, who becomes infuriated and vengeful when she sees how far Jenny is willing to go to stop Victoria from Victoria’s nefarious plans. Early on in the movie, Victoria snarls to Jenny: “You are nothing to this company. You are a brat … Your father abandoned this company, and he abandoned me.

At first, Jaime is eager to impress Victoria. When Jaime sees Victoria on the company property, he tries to get her attention, but Victoria doesn’t even notice Jaime and other low-paid workers at the company. Milagro is with Jaime when he tries and fails to get Victoria’s attention. Milagro comments to Jaime: “We’re invisible to people like that.”

It isn’t long before Jaime and Jenny meet when Jenny is at Kord Industries headquarters. Jaime’s attraction to her is immediate. Jenny plays it cool, but it’s obvious that she will be Jaime’s love interest. Perpetually skeptical Milagro thinks that Jenny is out of Jaime’s league and tells Jaime, Milagro assumes that Jenny is just another spoiled rich kid who wouldn’t want to associate with people in the Reyes family. Through a series of events, Jaime will cross paths with Jenny until they both find out that they have a common goal.

Jaime and Milagro get fired after Jaime tries to defend Jenny during an argument between Jenny and Victoria. Later, Jenny (disguised as a Kord Industries lab worker) steals a security key card to gain entrance to the lab where the Scarab is being secretly kept. Jenny then takes the Scarab, which she knows Victoria needs to make the One Man Army Corps. However, Dr. Sanchez (who was not in the lab during this theft) comes back and sees the Scarab has been stolen and quickly gives a security breach alert.

The Kord Industries building goes on a security lockdown, but Jenny quickly gives the Scarab (which is in a box) to an unwitting Jaime, who is headed for the exit with other visitors, who have been told to evacuate the building. Jenny tells Jaime that what’s in the box is an important secret, and she warns him not to open the box. But, of course, as shown in the “Blue Beetle” trailers, Jaime opens the box when he’s at home with his family.

The Scarab enters Jaime’s body (painfully), and he becomes the Blue Beetle, a superhero with physical characteristics of a giant beetle and a blue superhero suit of armor. This transformation is shown in the “Blue Beetle” trailers, so there’s no mystery about it. After the Scarab melds with Jaime’s body, he can hear the voice of the Scarab as being an entity called Khaji-Da (voiced by Becky G), who gives Jaime/Blue Beetle advice on what to do when he’s in superhero mode.

The rest of “Blue Beetle” goes through a lot of over-used superhero movie motions of “we have to save the world from an evil villain.” However, thanks to engaging dialogue (some of it is hilarious, some of it is hokey) and a likable rapport between the Reyes family members, “Blue Beetle” can be very enjoyable to watch. It’s suspenseful and dramatic in all the right places.

Maridueña, who was previously best known for his supporting role as Miguel Diaz in Netflix’s “Cobra Kai” karate drama series, gives a star-making performance in “Blue Beetle.” He perfectly embodies Jaime’s amiable personality, which is a mixture of hopeful, curious and insecure about what he perceives as his shortcomings. Maridueña also adeptly handles the wide range of emotions that Jaime goes through in the movie.

It should come as no surprise that Lopez, who has a long history in comedy, gets the best and funniest lines in the movie as Uncle Rudy, who just happens to be an underappreciated tech whiz. Barraza as Jaime’s seemingly mild-mannered grandmother also has a few moments to shine in ways that aren’t too surprising, since the movie keeps dropping hints that there’s more to Nana Reyes than being a kind grandmother. Alcázar, who portrays the easygoing Alberto, has some well-acted heartfelt moments in scenes between Alberto and Jaime, who inherited is father’s positive attitude.

Victoria obviously represents corporate greed that’s out of control. Sarandon plays this villain role to the hilt, but Victoria might not impress some viewers who like superhero movies to have chief villains with superpowers. “Blue Beetle” also has some commentary and observations (but not preaching) about racism, such as a scene where Jaime goes to a Kord Industries reception area, because he has a meeting with Jenny, and the snooty receptionist (played by Brianna Lewis) automatically assumes that Jaime is a delivery person.

The visual effects in “Blue Beetle” are perfectly fine, but they’re not going to win major awards. Some of the action scenes are clumsily staged and could have been better, in terms of visual style and how events unfold in the screenplay. A mid-credits scene in “Blue Beetle” hints that a certain character will be in a “Blue Beetle” sequel, while the end-credits scene in “Blue Beetle” is a bit of fluff that has no bearing on any DC Comics movie. Overall, “Blue Beetle” is a solid superhero movie that doesn’t have a lot of originality in its “good versus evil” story, but the movie has appealing messages about family unity during tough times that can resonate with audiences of many different backgrounds.

Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Blue Beetle” in U.S. cinemas on August 18, 2023.

Review: ‘La Guerra Civil,’ starring Julio César Chávez and Oscar De La Hoya

January 23, 2022

by Carla Hay

“La Guerra Civil”

Directed by Eva Longoria Bastón

Some language in Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in primarily in the United States and Mexico, the documentary film “La Guerra Civil” features a predominantly Latino group of people (with some white people) discussing the rivalry and careers of world champion boxers Julio César Chávez and Oscar De La Hoya.

Culture Clash: Chávez and De La Hoya, who faced off in two championship matches in 1996 and 1998, represented two aspects of Mexican-rooted culture (native Mexicans for Chávez, Mexican Americans for De La Hoya), which affected the type of fan support and images that each boxer had.

Culture Audience: “La Guerra Civil” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in movies about boxing and how ethnicity plays a role in athletes’ identities and public perceptions.

Oscar De La Hoya in “La Guerra Civil” (Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute)

“La Guerra Civil” goes beyond the usual clichés of boxing documentaries, by taking a candid look at how Julio César Chávez’s Mexican identity and Oscar De La Hoya’s Mexican American identity shaped their championship careers. It’s a traditionally made documentary that doesn’t really break any new ground in cinematic techniques, but the content of the story is meaningful because it shines a light on how ethnicity and nationality have a massive effect on how people feel about a public figure. The movie also vividly describes the conflicts (both internal and external) that can arise when someone identifies as a member of two different countries. Chávez and De La Hoya both participated in “La Guerra Civil,” which had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

“La Guerra Civil” (which means “The Civil War” in Spanish) is the feature-film directorial debut of Eva Longoria Bastón, a Mexican American who is an ideal person to tell this story because she’s lived many of the experiences described in the documentary. There is an authenticity to how this story is told that cannot be replicated by a documentary director who can’t relate to the main subjects of the film. “La Guerra Civil” is not told in complete chronological order, but the engaging editing makes the storytelling easy to follow.

Longoria Bastón conducted the main interviews (she can sometimes be heard off-camera asking follow-up questions), and she made the wise decision not to overstuff the movie with too many talking heads. Because much of the archival footage consists of boxing matches that were already televised, there aren’t many surprises in what’s shown in the documentary, except for some childhood photos or videos of Chávez and De La Hoya. The real value in “La Guerra Civil” is how these two former champs open up about how their past rivalry was bigger than a boxing title: It was a reflection of how people of Latino (especially Mexican) heritage felt about themselves.

“La Guerra Civil” dutifully covers a lot of biography basics that fans of Chávez and De La Hoya might already know but people unfamiliar with boxing might not know. Born in 1962, Chávez grew up very poor in his hometown of Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico. He had four brothers and five sisters; their father was a railroad worker.

In the documentary, Chávez reveals boxing wasn’t even his favorite sport as a child. He says that at the time, “I liked to play soccer, baseball and volleyball. I liked everything except boxing, because I had two brothers who started boxing before me. ” He adds, “I never thought I’d become a world champion.”

Chávez remembers one of his motivations to start boxing was after he got beaten up by a girl when he was an adolescent. At 16 years old, Chávez eventually got interested in boxing as a way to make money for the family, but he initially had to keep his training a secret from his mother, who disapproved of another one of her sons getting into boxing.

Chávez’s mother, whom he describes as kind and nurturing, eventually approved of his boxing activities when she and the rest of the family saw how talented he was and how his boxing earnings could benefit the family. He relocated from Culiacán to Tijuana to train as a professional boxer. (Hall of Fame boxing trainer Ignacio Beristán gives some background on how Tijuana is an important training ground for Mexican boxers.) Chávez’s “rags to riches” story made him a boxing hero to many, especially those coming from disenfranchised and underprivileged backgrounds.

By contrast, De La Hoya came from a family of boxers (his father, grandfather and brother), and he was pushed into boxing from an early age by his father. “I was forced into it,” De La Hoya says in the documentary. De La Hoya began competing in amateur boxing matches when he was 6 years old. This self-described “scrawny kid” would often bring down opponents who were a lot more muscular and more experienced than he was.

Born in Los Angeles in 1973, De La Hoya is the son of Mexican immigrants, whom De La Hoya says made their household more of a Mexican household than an American household. But because he was a first-generation American, De La Hoya was able to experience and represent both Mexican and American cultures, including being fluent in Spanish and English. Although Chávez and De La Hoya both say that they grew up in rough neighborhoods, De La Hoya’s East Los Angeles neighborhood was decidedly more middle-class than Chávez’s destitute La Redonda neighborhood in Culiacán.

De La Hoya says his first memory of boxing was the boxing fights that would take place for fun in the garage of his uncle. When De La Hoya was about 5 years old, he was ordered to fight one of his older cousins. De La Hoya vividly recalls the fear and humiliation he felt when he lost the fight and how it motivated him to beat the cousin in a rematch.

Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gómez, who’s been a friend of De La Hoya’s since their childhood, remembers that De La Hoya’s childhood revolved around boxing: “He [could] play for a little while, but when his dad would come out of work, it was time for [Oscar] to go to the gym.” Sports journalist Ron Borges compares De La Hoya to Tiger Woods, in how both athletes had hard-driving fathers who gave them no choice but to train in their respective sports at an age when most children are in kindergarten. “Little Oscar was a business commodity for his father,” Borges comments.

De La Hoya describes these early experiences in terms of how they influenced his career and how he approached boxing. He says that his boxing career was often about him feeling underestimated and wanting to prove his skeptics wrong. Although De La Hoya reached the heights of professional boxing, he makes it clear that it was with constant criticism from many people who thought that he “wasn’t Mexican enough.”

His good looks and the media’s “The Golden Boy” nickname of De La Hoya also made him the target of ridicule by people who thought he was too handsome and too Hollywood to be taken seriously. It’s mentioned several times in “La Guerra Civil” that at public appearances, De La Hoya would get just as many cheers and he would get boos from audiences.

Several of the people interviewed in the documentary discuss at length why Chávez got such unwavering public adoration in Mexican communities, while reactions to De La Hoya were decidedly more mixed. Boxing commentator Eduardo Lamazón says, “Chávez was a man of the people, of the slums. He was raised like many Mexicans, eating the same food as they did, listening to the same music. And he boxed like a Mexican too.” Boxing journalist Jose Luis Camarillo adds, “Chávez was a god. He was the star of the show.”

Sports reporter Claudio Trejos describes a common perception: “For the die-hard boxing fan, Oscar’s just a pretty boy from East Los Angeles. He’s not a real Mexican.” It’s also mentioned in the documentary that people would often call De La Hoya a “pocho,” which is a derogatory term for a person of Mexican heritage who is deliberately ignorant of Mexican culture and doesn’t know how to speak Spanish. It’s a word that bilingual De La Hoya was unfairly applied to him because he says he was raised in Mexican culture and can fluently speak Spanish and English.

On the plus side for De La Hoya was his crossover appeal, which was skillfully marketed by people such as boxing promoter Bob Arum, who helped get De La Hoya many lucrative endorsement deals. By contrast, Chávez fluency in English remained very limited. In the documentary, sports agent Leigh Stenberg says about De La Hoya: “He radiated charisma. He had a killer smile. If you had to create a marketable boxer, you couldn’t go wrong with starting with Oscar De La Hoya.”

Sports journalist Dan Rafael comments, Chávez made himself a legend … He was the star of stars until Oscar De La Hoya came along.” Gómez comments on when the real backlash started against De La Hoya: “It wasn’t until the [1996] Chávez that people started questioning, that people started saying, ‘He’s [De La Hoya] is not a real Mexican.”

“La Guerra Civil” talks about the rise and fall of these two boxing champs, with a lot of emphasis on the rise. The expected highlights of their careers are shown in clips of thrilling boxing matches, as well as large, adoring crowds who gathered to see them at other public appearances. There’s enough discussion of boxing techniques to please boxing fans but not too much of an overload that would alienate people who aren’t boxing enthusiasts.

De La Hoya talks a lot about his commitment to rigorous training, which served him well when he went up against his hero Chávez for the first time, in 1996 for the World Boxing Council’s light welterweight championship. It was billed as the Ultimate Flory fight. In the lead-up this famous boxing match, Chávez and De La Hoya (and their respective entourages) did a U.S. press tour. While De La Hoya was keeping a tight schedule of an athlete in intense training, Chávez was spending his free time doing a lot of partying.

Borges, who covered the press tour, remembers the contrasting lifestyles of Chávez and De La Hoya on this tour: “He [De La Hoya] was working out every day. Chávez was, I assure you, not working out during this trip. He was out [partying], but he was not working out.”

De La Hoya shares his perspective of his and Chávez’s very different approaches to preparing for this big fight: “He’s not taking me serious. But guess what? I’m going to take you serious.” Chávez essentially admits that all of this was true.

When Chávez and De La Hoya had their rematch in 1998, De La Hoya said he didn’t slack off on his intense training. De La Hoya convinced legendary boxing Jesús Rivero (who’s interviewed in the documentary) to come out of retirement to help with De La Hoya’s training. De La Hoya describes Rivero as “a man of few words” and “grumpy” but “by fair the best trainer I ever had.”

Based on how De La Hoya and Chávez discuss how fame affected them, Chávez might have been more beloved overall by people of Mexican heritage, but Chávez had more self-esteem problems in coping with his success. Chávez says that although he got everything he ever dreamed of in his career and he was surrounded by people who adored him, at the height of his fame, “I felt very alone.”

Feeling lonely and empty inside is why Chávez says he turned to cocaine for comfort. He mentions that the first time tried cocaine was after winning a light welterweight title fight against Héctor “Macho” Camacho in 1992. “And that was my ruin,” Chávez says of cocaine. “I took refuge in drugs and alcohol.”

Chávez is open about his addictions to drugs and alcohol, but De La Hoya doesn’t discuss in the documentary that he also had addictions to drugs and alcohol. De La Hoya’s personal demons and rehab stints are briefly mentioned by someone else toward the end of the documentary, almost as if it’s an afterthought. You get the feeling that De La Hoya wanted this topic to be off-limits in order for him to participate in the movie.

The documentary also leaves out any talk about other aspects of Chávez’s and De La Hoya’s personal lives. For example, their marriages and children are not discussed. The movie makes passing references to De La Hoya being a sex-symbol boxer to many women when he was in his prime, but he doesn’t go into details about how he handled all that amorous attention.

Even though De La Hoya doesn’t talk about his addictions in this documentary, he does show a vulnerable side when remembering about his late mother Cecilia and his complicated relationship with her. Oscar De La Hoya’s brother Joel De La Hoya Jr. describes their mother Cecilia as Oscar’s biggest fan. Oscar says, “My mother went through a lot of emotional abuse,” but “she beat the hell out of us … My aggression, my pain, my anger—that comes from her.”

Oscar also shares his heartbreak of his mother dying of breast cancer in 1990, just three weeks after he won the gold medal at the Goodwill Games. “It was the biggest blow I ever felt in my life,” he says of his mother’s death. Oscar says he became so depressed that he was going to quit boxing, but he changed his mind, largely because he had promised his mother that he’d win a gold medal in boxing at the 1992 Olympics. And he did. When De La Hoya famously waved the flags for Mexico and the U.S. after his Olympics victory, this symbolic act of identifying with both nations cemented his dual heritage in many people’s minds.

The 1996 boxing match between Chávez and Oscar De La Hoya marked the first time that a Mexican and a Mexican American would be battling each other in this type of high-profile boxing championship. Critical sports scholar Rudy Mondragón explains why this particular match had such cultural resonance, particularly with people of Mexican heritage: “Boxing is a sport that’s never been shy to utilize race and ethnicity to create a theatrical spectacle … It was like the world was telling us: ‘There’s one way to be Mexican: Oscar’s way or Julio’s way.”

In the documentary, actor/comedian George Lopez and actor/TV host Mario Lopez, who are both Mexican American and not related to each other, share their thoughts on the Chávez/De La Hoya rivalry. Mario Lopez says he’s been a die-hard fan of Chávez since childhood, while George Lopez seems to be more sympathetic to De La Hoya. George Lopez and Mario Lopez are the only two people interviewed in “La Guerra Civil” who aren’t in the boxing/sports industry, but their “fan perspective” still seems very privileged since they’re both celebrities.

Some people might find “La Guerra Civil” lacking in some areas. For example, Trejos is the only woman who’s interviewed. This token female perspective is very noticeable, especially since the documentary mentions several times that women were a large percentage of Oscar De La Hoya’s fan base.

The movie also leaves out the perspectives of any professional boxers who had high-profile matches against Oscar De La Hoya or Chávez. Commentaries from “non-celebrity” boxing fans are only in very brief clips from archival news footage, not in new interviews conducted for the documentary. The only family member of Chávez who’s interviewed is his brother Rodolfo, who makes a brief appearance in the movie.

Although “La Guerra Civil” has an insular selection of people who are interviewed, what they have to say adds up to a worthwhile story about how people’s varying definitions of Mexican heritage manifested in the rivalry between Chávez and De La Hoya. “La Guerra Civil” isn’t a completely comprehensive documentary, but it does show that people from a similar culture can find common ground among their differences. And that’s why the movie is more than a boxing documentary. It’s also a thoughtful commentary about what we can learn from accepting other people’s identities without diminishing our own.

Review: ‘No Man’s Land’ (2021), starring Jake Allyn, Frank Grillo, Jorge A. Jimenez, Alex MacNicoll, Andie MacDowell and George Lopez

February 27, 2021

by Carla Hay

Jake Allyn in “No Man’s Land” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“No Man’s Land” (2021)

Directed by Conor Allyn

Some language in Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Texas and Mexico, the dramatic film “No Man’s Land” features a cast of white and Latino people representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A white teenage son of a Texas rancher shoots and kills a Mexican immigrant boy and flees to Mexico as a fugitive, while a Texas Ranger who’s a Mexican American goes in hot pursuit to capture him.

Culture Audience: “No Man’s Land” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching idiotic “chase movies” that have an offensive tone of white supremacy.

George Lopez in “No Man’s Land” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

There’s a cliché that says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” That saying could apply to the atrocious dramatic film “No Man’s Land.” The filmmakers of “No Man’s Land” say the movie is their way of trying to heal racial rifts among white Americans and Mexican Latinos, in a political climate where the Mexican/U.S. border wall has been used as a controversial symbol of people’s views on immigration in the United States.

If the “No Man’s Land” filmmakers had intentions of healing the harm done by racism, it didn’t work with this movie. In fact, “No Man’s Land” is tone-deaf schlock that actually has more than a whiff of white supremacy and racist beliefs. The film’s Mexican characters are written as expendable, not very smart, and pawns for whatever the white characters want, while the white characters are elevated as having more valuable lives, being more intelligent, and more deserving of redemption.

“No Man’s Land” was directed by Conor Allyn and written by his younger brother Jake Allyn (one of the stars of the movie) and David Barraza. As explained in the movie’s prologue, the movie’s title is named after the No Man’s Land area that’s the gap between the Texas border fences and the Mexican land that’s north of the Rio Grande. The movie takes place in Mexico and the U.S. state of Texas.

Conor Allyn made a very pretentious director’s statement in the “No Man’s Land” production notes. The statement reads in part: “In a time of great fear, we wanted to make a film about hope. The world is growing apart. Xenophobia and prejudice are abundant, millions clamor for walls to divide, yet there is still time to unite. But first we must recognize the borders within ourselves. And cross it.”

Conor Allyn continues in the statement: “But change does not come without pain. Our characters have to experience, and inflict, enormous pain in order to make a transformation. And in doing so, they are able to cross that border within themselves. And we hope that the audience does the same.”

The characters might inflict some pain on each other, but viewers of “No Man’s Land” will have some pain inflicted on them if they have to sit through this horrible onslaught of bad moviemaking. Be prepared to possibly have some brain cells damaged by the stupidity of it all. It’s not just that the filmmakers ineptly mishandled racism issues in this movie, but it’s also a terrible chase movie with insipid and unrealistic scenes.

In “No Man’s Land,” Jake Allyn portrays Jackson Greer, who lives with his family on a Texas ranch in an unnamed city that’s near the Mexican border. Jackson is in his late teens and is about to enroll in an unnamed New York City college on a baseball scholarship. Jackson’s rancher father Bill Greer (played by Frank Grillo) is more excited than Jackson is about Jackson getting a college education and possibly becoming a baseball star.

Jackson would rather skip college and continue to work on the ranch. In a conversation between Jackson and Bill in Bill’s truck, the father comments to the son about this opportunity to go to college: “You go give it a shot. If it don’t work out, it don’t work out.” Bill’s incorrect grammar is meant to show that he’s a working-class guy who doesn’t care about speaking proper English.

The other members of the Greer family who live on the ranch are Bill’s wife Monica Greer (played by Andie MacDowell) and their younger son Lucas Greer (played by Alex MacNicoll), who’s close to the same age as Jackson. In their spare time, Bill and his sons patrol the borders of their ranch to try and chase off immigrants and drug smugglers who illegally cross the border. These illegal treks usually happen at night.

Meanwhile, members of a family in Mexico are preparing to make this illegal crossing into the United States. Gustavo Almeida (played by Jorge A. Jimenez) is a widower who has a green card (resident alien documentation) to legally work in the United States. However, Gustavo’s son Fernando (played by Alessio Valentini), who’s about 13 or 14 years old, was denied immigration permission to live in the U.S. with Gustavo.

Gustavo has temporarily returned to Mexico to illegally bring Fernando into the United Sates. About two or three local men they know from Mexico are also on this trek to cross the border with Gustavo and Fernando. Gustavo’s religious mother Lupe (played by Ofelia Medina) is staying behind in Mexico, but she wishes them luck, and she gives Fernando some cash to take with him.

Gustavo, Fernando and the other men cross the border and end up on the Greer family’s property. Bill, Jackson and Lucas are out patrolling that night with their rifles. And, of course, things go horribly wrong.

Bill orders the men to stop because they’re trespassing. Because most of the Mexican men don’t speak English and the Greer men don’t speak Spanish, there’s a language barrier. But there’s no mistaking what the guns are for and Bill’s tone of voice. Gustavo, who speaks some English, raises his hands and tells the Greers that the immigrants don’t want any trouble.

Some of the immigrant men try to ignore Bill and keep going. But with Bill leading the way, he and his sons confront the men. One the immigrants pulls out a switchblade knife. A scuffle ensues where one of the immigrant men gets in a struggle with Bill over his rifle. A shot is fired, and Lucas accidentally gets hit. Meanwhile, a panicked Jackson rushes to his family’s defense and shoots his rifle. The bullet hits Fernando in the back, and he is killed instantly.

During this chaos, Bill has rushed to Lucas’ side, while Gustavo has rushed to Fernando’s side. In a rage, Bill threatens to shoot all of the immigrants if they don’t leave his property. Gustavo begs to stay with Fernando, but he can also tell that Bill is so angry that the Mexican immigrants will be blamed for everything and will probably get arrested. And so, a heartbroken Gustavo leaves with the other men and they go back to Mexico. Lucas is still alive, and he’s taken to a hospital for surgery.

The Texas Ranger who’s in charge of the investigation is named Ramirez (played by George Lopez), and the “No Man’s Land” filmmakers didn’t bother to give this character a first name or a realistic storyline. Ranger Ramirez doesn’t have any law enforcement partners with him during most of the time when he investigates this serious crime. Throughout the entire movie, Ranger Ramirez is the only Texas Ranger in Mexico who’s pursuing this case that could lead to charges of second-degree murder or manslaughter.

Ranger Ramirez is immediately suspicious of Bill’s story that Bill was the one who accidentally shot Fernando in self-defense during the scuffle. Bill is the registered owner of all the guns in this incident, but the facts don’t match up with Bill’s story. Bill claims that he was fighting with one of the immigrants over the gun that ended up shooting Bill’s son Lucas, while Fernando was shot seconds later by another gun. Someone else had to have been holding that other gun that shot Fernando. And Ranger Ramirez instinctively knows the shooter couldn’t have been Bill.

Bill wants to cover up for Jackson because he doesn’t want this crime to ruin Jackson’s promising future. However, Jackson has a guilty conscience. (He’s shown wailing by himself somewhere in the Texas Rangers station while his father is being questioned.) And, as guilty people often do, Jackson (on horseback) goes back to the crime scene.

At the crime scene in the remote desert field, Jackson finds Fernando’s wallet. And just who happens to show up right then and there? Ranger Ramirez, of course, who was presumably following Jackson. Jackson can’t take the guilt anymore and he confesses to Ranger Ramirez that he was the one who shot Fernando.

Instead of allowing himself to be arrested, Jackson panics and flees on his horse, with Ranger Ramirez in pursuit in his squad car. Jackson is able to lose Ranger Ramirez when they reach a creek that Ranger Ramirez can’t cross on foot or by car, but Jackson can cross by horseback. Jackson eventually crosses the border to Mexico. All he has are his cell phone, the clothes he’s wearing, his wallet, his horse and Fernando’s wallet. And he doesn’t know how to speak Spanish.

It’s either lazy screenwriting or the filmmakers’ way of showing that Ranger Ramirez doesn’t have much clout, because he’s the only Texas Ranger shown chasing Jackson, a fugitive who’s wanted for suspected murder or manslaughter. Jackson could be armed and dangerous, but the filmmakers want to make it look like the Texas Rangers are willing to give Jackson a lot of leeway for this felony, because they’ve only sent one Ranger to be in pursuit of him. And the pursuer happens to be Latino. There are some scenes where Ranger Ramirez has to do some running on foot when he’s clearly out of shape, which only highlight how the filmmakers want to make this Latino cop character look like a buffoon without any backup.

The “No Man’s Land” filmmakers try to make it look like they’re not playing into racial stereotypes of Mexican Americans, in an interrogation scene where Bill incorrectly assumes that Ranger Ramirez can speak Spanish. Ranger Ramirez defensively declares that he’s an American too and he doesn’t know how to speak Spanish. Therefore, the filmmakers have made Ranger Ramirez look even more inept, as someone who can’t speak Spanish when he goes to Mexico as the lone pursuer of Jackson.

There’s more racial privilege/condescension on display, when Ranger Ramirez tries to find out from Bill and Monica where Jackson could have gone after Jackson has fled from being arrested. And these self-righteous parents end up getting angry at Ranger Ramirez for letting Jackson escape into “dangerous” Mexico. These parents, who come across as racists, seem more worried about Jackson getting hurt by Mexicans while he’s evading arrest than they are about the fact that their son Jackson is the one who’s committed a fatal crime, and he’s breaking the law even more by becoming a fugitive.

Needless to say, this dimwitted movie doesn’t even address that Bill should be in trouble for lying to law enforcement. Bill’s false confession also impeded the investigation, which is another crime. But those crimes are ignored, because in “No Man’s Land,” the white characters are the ones the filmmakers want the audience to root for to be forgiven the most.

Jackson’s parents understandably want the man who accidentally shot Lucas to be arrested, but they (and this movie) expect Jackson, who committed a worse crime of killing someone else, to be shown more mercy. Lucas was shot, but he wasn’t killed. And Jackson’s parents don’t seem to care that a family lost an innocent child because the child’s life was taken by Jackson, who’s alive and well.

The filmmakers give a lot of attention to the Greer family and tell very little about the Almeida family. Viewers never find out what Fernando’s hopes and dreams were or anything substantial about Gustavo and his experiences as a legal Mexican immigrant in the United Sates. There are expected scenes of Gustavo grieving over Fernando’s death, but no further insight into their lives.

By contrast, there’s a lot of concern in the movie over how Jackson’s crime of killing Fernando will negatively affect Jackson’s future and the Greer family’s reputation. The entire “chase” part of the movie puts an emphasis on Jackson feeling out of his comfort zone because he’s hiding out in a country where he doesn’t know the language, even though he’s an outlaw of his own free will. The filmmakers make Jackson’s thoughts and needs more important than any of the Mexicans’ thoughts and needs. It’s a racist imbalance that makes the Mexican characters look like hollow plot devices that serve the main story of how Jackson is going to get out of his self-made predicament.

When Ranger Ramirez gets to Mexico, the movie makes some vague references to Ranger Ramirez enlisting the help of Mexican federales to try to find Jackson, as well as the man who shot Lucas. But these federales are barely seen in the movie and certainly aren’t written as important characters. It’s an example of how the filmmakers marginalize Mexican law enforcement throughout the entire movie. Ranger Ramirez is the only Latino person in the movie who has a significant role as law enforcement, and he’s set up to be a character to go after a white guy who’s supposed to be sympathetic.

And the filmmakers literally have Jackson go on what turns out to be a sympathy tour in Mexico. Everywhere that Jackson goes while he’s hiding from the law, he has Mexicans bending over backwards to help him because they feel sorry for him, even though he’s a stranger who has all the signs of someone who’s left somewhere abruptly and is trying to hide from something: He’s new to the area and homeless; he has no possessions except his horse and a few personal items; and he doesn’t talk about his background.

Jackson doesn’t even know what city he’s in for most of the time he’s in Mexico. He doesn’t bother to use a map, but he has all these friendly Mexicans willing to help him when he wants to hide out somewhere and get advice on where to go next. It’s the movie’s way of saying that a good-looking American white guy who’s a fugitive hiding in Mexico and who doesn’t know Spanish should have it this easy, just because he’s a good-looking American white guy.

That’s what happens when Jackson, who’s on horseback on a nearly deserted road, encounters a truck with a small family of ranchers who are heading back to their home. Even though they know nothing about him, Jackson quickly convinces them on the spot to hire him to work on their ranch and give him and his horse a place to stay. The family happens to have a truck that is already equipped to transport a horse in the back of the truck. Before they drive back to the family’s ranch, Jackson (showing his privileged attitude) acts a little surprised and embarrassed when they tell him that he has to stay in the back of the truck with the horse because there’s no room for Jackson in the front.

The family has two children in their late teens or early 20s: Miguel (played by Iván Aragón) and Victoria (played by Esmeralda Pimentel), who were in the truck when Jackson first met them. It should come as no surprise that Victoria is immediately attracted to Jackson, who acts attracted to her too. But it’s hard to tell how much of Jackson’s flirtation with Victoria is real and how much is fake, since he’s using this family while he hides from the law. Victoria suspects that Jackson has something major to hide, but she goes out of her way to help Jackson, even going as far as giving him cash.

Jackson also has some other “too good to be true” encounters with Mexicans who automatically trust him without knowing anything about him. There’s an elderly couple named Juan (played by Carlos Remolina) and Rosa (played by Julieta Ortiz), who immediately let him stay in their home. They don’t ask Jackson any questions (very unrealistic), and he would’ve stayed longer with them but his time with this gullible couple is interrupted.

And when Jackson is on a bus, he strikes up a conversation with a mother sitting nearby who’s reading “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” to her son, who’s about 7 or 8 years old. The boy thinks the book is boring, until Jackson lectures him about how “Huckleberry Finn” is a classic adventure and asks the boy if he’s gotten to the best parts of the book that talk about the royal characters. The boy says no.

And the next thing you know, the kid is sitting next to Jackson with his head leaning on Jackson’s arm, as Jackson reads the book to him like a friendly neighborhood schoolteacher. The cloying parts of this movie are just beyond laughable. If the filmmakers had more time in this scene, they might have made Jackson charm his way into letting the boy’s mother give Jackson a place to stay too.

Since this movie wants to make Mexicans look inferior to Jackson, there’s a silly subplot about a small-time Mexican criminal named Luis (played by Andrés Delgado), who’s also chasing after Jackson for revenge. Luis, who has a peroxide-blonde faux hawk hairstyle, looks more like a scrawny skater than a supposedly fearsome leader of a gang of hoodlums.

Luis and his sleazy friends live in a run-down trailer area somewhere in the Mexican desert. Apparently, one of the ways they make money is by ripping off unsuspecting tourists by operating a small convenience stand that sells overpriced food and drinks. When Jackson first crosses the border into Mexico, he tries to buy some water from the stand, but then refuses when he sees that he’s being overcharged.

Luis and his gang then try to steal Jackson’s horse, but Jackson is able to fight them off and flee with the horse. Somehow, Luis finds out Jackson is the same guy who’s responsible for killing the son of a local man named Gustavo. Yes, it’s the same Gustavo, the father of the dead Fernando. Luis goes to a grieving Gustavo and offers his services to kill Jackson. Gustavo and Luis then team up to hunt down Jackson and get revenge.

The movie gets even dumber from then on, as Jackson has not only law enforcement chasing after him, but also Gustavo and Luis. There are a few instances where Ranger Ramirez is close to capturing Jackson, but Jackson outsmarts Ranger Ramirez, because the filmmakers are intent on making Ranger Ramirez look like an incompetent fool. Just like Ranger Ramirez, Luis could easily get the help of his cronies to outnumber Jackson, but he doesn’t do that, because the filmmakers don’t want the Mexicans to be smarter than the white Americans in this movie.

The movie’s big climactic showdown is extremely annoying and an insult to viewers’ intelligence. And when viewers find out how much prison time that Jackson would be facing if he’s caught, it’s further proof of racial inequalities in the U.S. criminal justice system. The filmmakers of “No Man’s Land” are trying to pretend that this movie can help heal these racial divides, but this reprehensible movie just fans the flames of bigotry even more by glorifying “white American privilege” and exploiting systemic racism for a cash grab.

IFC Films released “No Man’s Land” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on January 22, 2021.

Review: ‘This Is Stand-Up,’ starring Jerry Seinfeld, Jamie Foxx, Kevin Hart, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, Sebastian Maniscalco and D.L. Hughley

April 13, 2020

by Carla Hay

“This Is Stand-Up”

Directed by Paul Toogood and Lloyd Stanton

Culture Representation: This documentary is a compilation of interviews, performances and off-stage footage of a racially diverse group (white, African American, Latino and Asian) of well-known, mostly American stand-up comedians.

Culture Clash: The general consensus in the documentary is that being a professional stand-up comedian goes against what most people consider as having a “normal life.”

Culture Audience: “This Is Stand-Up” will appeal primarily to people who are stand-up comedy fans, even though the documentary ignores many problems (such as sexism, joke stealing and monetary rip-offs) in the business side of stand-up comedy.

Garry Shandling in “This Is Stand-Up” (Photo courtesy of Comedy Central)

“This Is Stand-Up” is kind of like the documentary equivalent of speed-dating. The movie packs in many famous stand-up comedians, who deliver a lot of personality soundbites, but ultimately there’s not a lot of depth or anything new that’s revealed for people who already know about the stand-up comedy world. Although a few of the comedians talk about their personal struggles, most just share anecdotes and advice, and the documentary doesn’t acknowledge the sexist and cutthroat side of the business.

Filmed over five years, “This Is Stand-Up” (directed by Paul Toogood and Lloyd Stanton) has a “who’s who” of stand-up comedians (almost all American) who are interviewed in the documentary. They include Judd Apatow, David A. Arnold, Dave Attell, Maria Bamford, Bill Bellamy, Gina Brillon, Cocoa Brown, Cedric The Entertainer, Tommy Davidson, Mike Epps, Jamie Foxx, Gilbert Gottfried, Eddie Griffin, Tiffany Haddish, Kevin Hart, D. L. Hughley, Mia Jackson, Jim Jefferies, Jessica Kirson, Bert Kreischer, Bobby Lee, Carol Leifer, George Lopez, Sebastian Maniscalco, Jay Mohr, Jim Norton, Rick Overton, Paul Provenza, Chris Rock, Bob Saget, Amy Schumer, Jerry Seinfeld, Garry Shandling, Sarah Silverman, Owen Smith, Kira Soltanovich, Beth Stelling, Taylor Tomlinson, Theo Von and Keenen Ivory Wayans. (Noticeably missing: Dave Chappelle.)

Toogood and Lloyd are Brits who previously directed the documentary “Dying Laughing,” which had a limited theatrical release in 2017. “Dying Laughing” was an interview-only film about stand-up comedians, and featured many of the same people as in “This Is Stand-Up,” such as Seinfeld, Hart, Silverman, Rock, Shandling, Schumer and Cedric The Entertainer. “Dying Laughing” also had more international representation, since it included comedians from Canada (such as Russell Peters), the United Kingdom (Billy Connolly) and Australia (Jim Jeffries). In “This Is Stand-Up,” Jeffries is the only non-American comedian interviewed in the movie. British comedian Ricky Gervais is shown as a guest on Norton’s SiriusXM radio show, but he’s not interviewed specifically for this movie.

Although it’s important for the documentary to include on-stage footage of the comedians, the best parts of the movie are when the comedians are shown off-stage. Stand-up comedy routines on stage can easily be accessed on the Internet, so “This Is Stand-Up” shines when it has exclusive footage of what the comedians are like in their homes or backstage. Mohr, Tomlinson and Kresicher are among those interviewed in their homes, while some of the memorable tour footage includes Maniscalco and the “Kings of Comedy” team of Hughley, Lopez, Cedric The Entertainer and Eddie Griffin.

“This Is Stand-Up” is also a good introduction to hear some origin stories from famous comedians if you’ve never heard before how they got interested in doing stand-up comedy. (Die-hard fans of these comedians probably know these stories already, but the documentary assumes not everyone will know about these comedians’ backgrounds.) Silverman says, “When I was 3 years old, my dad taught me to swear, and he thought that was hilarious. I got crazy with power over that. I got addicted to that feeling.”

Schumer says her first introduction to performing in front of an audience and getting laughs was when she was in school plays—but she was getting laughed at for the wrong reasons. It made her angry until a teacher pointed out to her that people laughing at her performance is a good thing because laughter makes people happy.

Foxx remembers being the type of kid who was always mouthing off in class. Instead of sending him to the principal’s office, one of his teachers set aside time in class for Foxx to tell stories. According to Foxx, it was such a hit that other teachers would visit the classroom to watch him perform.

Maniscalco says that he was the opposite of the class clown. He describes himself as a shy and quiet kid who preferred to observe people. And for Rock, his first inclination to perform on stage was inspired by his grandfather, who was a reverend for their family’s church. Rock says that he saw how his grandfather was the center of attention, and it was the kind of attention that Rock wanted too.

In fact, almost all of the comedians in the documentary say in one way or another that being the center of attention is their main motivation for doing stand-up comedy, despite it being a very emotionally demanding way to make a living. Lopez comments, “What I like about comedy is that it’s given me a great life. And now, I know I’m important.”

However, it’s not a revelation that comedians are very insecure in their real lives. Most have openly admitted to being insecure and/or emotionally damaged. And many have even used their insecurities as the basis of their on-stage personas. It’s also clear from watching this documentary that most of the comedians use comedy as a way to fill a deep emotional void to make themselves feel wanted in this world.

Von (who first came to national prominence in the 2000s as a star of the MTV reality show “Road Rules”) is one of the comedians in the documentary who is followed on tour, instead of just doing an in-studio interview. He talks about his financially deprived background and unhappy childhood, which are the foundation for much of the material in his stand-up act. But he also opens up by saying that part of his motivation for doing stand-up comedy is so his mother will approve, since he says he’s never seen her laugh.

The problem with how the filmmakers deal with these stories and anecdotes is that there’s no outside verification. The documentary does not interview anyone who knew these comedians “way back when” or even people who helped give these comedians their big breaks. Everything in the film exists in the vacuum of what the comedians want to say, without including hardly any other perspectives.

One of the exceptions is when the documentary goes to the home of Kreischer and shows some of his life with his wife and two young daughters, who are all interviewed on camera. He gets visibly uncomfortable when his daughters admit that they don’t like it when he’s away on tour. Family members of the other comedians are not interviewed in this documentary.

The nature of stand-up comedy is for comedians to often exaggerate about their lives in order to be funny. “This Is Stand-Up” takes everything that these comedians say at face value and doesn’t dig much deeper. For example, several of the comedians, such as Hart and Bellamy, talk about the importance for comedians to find their unique voices and identities, but the movie doesn’t give examples of how these comedians have evolved.

Hart says, “It takes a little time to develop who you are or who you want to be. I was definitely guilty of that in the beginning of my career. I didn’t have a voice. I didn’t know I could be myself.” That’s all well and good, but if we’re being honest, that’s pretty generic and vague advice.

The comedians talk a lot about how honing the craft of stand-up comedy involves a lot of practice at open-mic nights for little to no money. And getting to the level of headlining a show can sometimes take years. Comedians such as Seinfeld don’t believe there should be any shortcuts to stand-up comedy fame—people have to pay their dues on stage in front of live audiences, not in front of a mirror or on a YouTube channel.

There’s also an entire segment of the documentary devoted to how to deal with heckling and bombing on stage. Shandling talks about once being so paralyzed with humiliation after bombing from a show that he stayed in a car and couldn’t move for about 15 minutes. Rock’s advice for comedians is to resist the inclination to talk faster when being heckled and instead to slow down and take back control.

However, there’s no mention in the documentary about all the sleazy things that comedians encounter on the way to the top—the rip-offs, the unscrupulous managers/agents, or even the difficulty in getting managers or agents in the first place. And because there’s a limited number of comedy clubs in any given big city, it’s a very insular network where the venue owners and concert promoters have a lot of control.

The documentary includes a diverse mix of comedians, yet doesn’t mention a big problem in stand-up comedy: sexism against women. And the movie has an unrealistic portrayal of stand-up comedians as this “we all support each other” community. (The movie uses “The Kings of Comedy” tour as an example.)

Although there can sometimes be camaraderie among comedians, the reality is that stand-up comedy is and can be very cutthroat. This documentary doesn’t even mention the widespread problem of comedians stealing each other’s jokes. And this documentary completely ignores the bitter rivalries that happen in stand-up comedy.

Seinfeld, one of the highest-paid stand-up comedians of all time, echoes what many of the comedians say in the film: Preparing a stand-up comedy show is a lot harder than people think it is. He says, “I adore the rigorous difficulty of creating and preparing a joke.”

He also says that there are four levels of comedy: (1) Making your friends laugh; (2) Making strangers laugh; (3) Making strangers laugh and getting paid for it; and (4) Making strangers laugh, getting paid for it, and then having them talk like you after seeing your show.

The documentary also covers the issues of social commentary in stand-up comedy and “how far is too far.” When asked if any topic is off-limits in stand-up comedy, there’s a montage of comedians who say “no.” Hughley says, “I’ll never apologize for telling a joke.”

Griffin adds, “It’s always comedy’s job to speak knowledge to power about what people are upset about, because comedy has always been about the people.” He compares stand-up comedians to being the modern equivalents of court jesters.

Silverman (who’s no stranger to controversy) comments on how smartphones and social media have impacted stand-up comedy: “It’s especially daunting now, because people are recording with their stupid phones and posting stuff. There’s more at stake to failing than just in the safe walls of a comedy club. That said, you have to not care.”

Although “This Is Stand-Up” fails to address the predatory side of the business (maybe that’s why managers, agents, promoters and venue owners weren’t interviewed), at least the documentary does include the reality that stand-up comedy takes a toll on comedians’ personal lives. Depression, divorce and substance abuse are common with stand-up comedians, as these problems are in many professions that require frequent traveling. But they’re especially toxic for comedians, who are more inclined to be insecure than most other people.

Brillon comments on what stand-up comedians experience in their personal lives: “Relationships suffer—not just romantic relationships, but family relationships, because stand-up becomes the longest relationship in your life—and the most abusive. And you still love it and go back to it.”

Mohr, who’s been very open about his struggles with mental illness and drug addiction, says that for him, stand-up comedy is his greatest love and biggest addiction. Even if he wanted to stop, he says, he’s compelled to keep going: “To be a stand-up comic, you have to be completely unreasonable, unwell and unhinged.”

Haddish explains why stand-up comedians are driven to do what they do: “When you’re on stage, it’s like being next to God … Comedy is the most fantastic medicine you can imagine, not just for the audience, but for the comedian.”

“This Is Stand-Up” might not be very revealing about a lot of showbiz realities, since documentaries and biographies about several famous comedians have already uncovered the dark sides to stand-up comedy. This documentary is, as Toogood describes it in a Comedy Central press release, “a love letter” to stand-up comedians—at least the ones who are famous enough to be in this film. If you want some in-depth insight into on all the sleaze and heartaches these comedians had to go through to get to where they are now, then you’ll have to look elsewhere for those real stories.

Comedy Central premiered “This Is Stand-Up” on April 12, 2020.