| A group of stand-up comedians on acid or cocaine or a combination of a lot of things. No, I’m not describing a normal night at a comedy club, but the new movie Stealing Jokes. A movie made by and about stand-up comedians that goes all over the place at break-neck speed. When a club owner screws them over, they become ninjas, and thiefs, and heist planners, and that covers like 20 minutes. | | 2024
Directed by: Mike Young
Screenplay by: Mike Young
Starring: Jeff Dye, Dustin Ybarra, Carlos "Ha Ha" Davis, and Ryu Go-Eun
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The four leads are all comedians playing comedians: Jeff Dye as Jake Burman, the guy trying to make things happen; Dustin Ybarrra as Freddy Garza, the up-and-coming comedian; Carlos “Ha Ha” Davis as Tony Wilson, a former sit-com star still trying to headline; and Ryu Go-Eun, also an up-and-coming comedienne and Jake’s girlfriend if he knew how to commit. All four are great, they’re funny, they match the tone of the movie, they keep the action up, and they also turn their characters into real people. The personal connections they each make is fun.
The supporting characters are a hyper-active mish-mash that is all over the place. Kind of like the plot of the movie. Some of the supporting actors, primarily the ones we meet early on who don’t have a significant role to play in the movie are not good actors and the inexperience in the movie comes across in a big, distracting way. Some of the supporting actors are famous comedians playing weird characters who go a little too big and have trouble matching the tone of the movie. And finally some of the supporting characters are up-and-coming comedians who match the tone of the main four and make their scenes a whole lot of fun: namely, Luke Null and Carly Wilson.
There are a lot of jokes jam-packed into this movie, some of which are very funny. The breaking of the fourth wall primarily at the beginning is a little distracting but eventually they find a way to deliver stand-up type jokes within the action of the movie, and that is some solid writing. There’s also a whole lot of plot that goes all over the place, some of which makes sense, a lot of which is just finding new heights of nonsense.
I think for its target audience this movie will work - it’s short, fast and funny. On a simple level, it’s about comedians reaching their breaking point and trying to recover what’s theirs so they can continue to make the world a lighter, funnier place to be.
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