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THE ARISTOCRATS Send This Review to a Friend
If you are not put off by extraordinarily explicit language and descriptions of almost every kind of sex act imaginable, “The Aristocrats” should keep you in stitches. It is all dirty talk and no action, the ribald humor resting on how different comedians can expand an old vaudeville joke and also elaborate on what makes a joke funny. The film provides remarkable evidence of how far language taboos can be broken, although the worries about disapproval are still there, as indicated by the fact that the major AMC movie chain refuses to book the film. Congratulaions to Loews for not shying from booking "The Aristocrats," which I viewed for a second time in New York at its Lincoln Square Cinema, which was crowded for an early Sunday afternoon showing.
With all of the pre-opening publicity, by now you should know that the basic joke concerns a proposal of a family act to a booking agent. When asked what happens in the act, the pitch describes a series of down and dirty perversions, and when the agents asks what the act is called, the punch line is “The Aristocrats.”
The only way to build on the joke is to make it progressively dirtier. Perhaps the funniest and most outrageous contribution comes from Bob Saget, who has no holds barred in his elaborations. Not everyone in the huge cast tells the joke, and Robin Williams tells an entirely different joke that is very funny and even clean.
Here’s a mere sampling of the cast—Hank Azaria, David Brenner, Drew Carey, Billy Connolly, Pat Cooper, Whoopie Goldberg, Gilbert Gottfried (right up there with Saget in brazenness), Richard Jeni, Lisa Lampanelli, Jason Alexander, Mario Cantone, Tim Conway, Judy Gold, Eric Idle, Bill Maher, Larry Storch, Chris Rock, Rita Rudner, Jon Stewart, and Bruce Vilanche. There are many, many more.
The film is by Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette--Penn and Teller are also on screen—with Provenza getting directorial credit.
There are moments when “The Aristocrats” has laugh lulls, but there is so much hilarity in the course of the 86-minute film, that it can lay claim to being among the funniest as well as the raunchiest films to come our way. It also delivers a refreshing, nose-thumbing blow against those trying to clamp down on free speech and control what we watch or hear. But those who recoil at such humor and are inclined to say “that’s disgusting” should know what they would be facing. A THINKFilm release.
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