Musical comedy acts are a dime a dozen, although acoustic-guitar-hugging real-life comedian Henry Phillips—the luckless star of filmmaker Gregori Viens's Punching Henry—seems to revel in the loserdom that naturally comes to guys who perform milquetoast comedy songs in dive clubs. Phillips's agent gets a call from a Hollywood insider bigwig (J.K. Simmons), who gets the comedian a shot at a pilot for a TV sitcom. Once Phillips is in L.A., however, his car is stolen, he succumbs to a heckler onstage, he accidentally puts a lit cigarette in his ear during a performance, and he can't get laid—except when his lesbian best friend asks him to inseminate her wife after they decide against in vitro fertilization (but even this task is bungled by unintentional coitus interruptus). There is some industry satire here that is more clever than funny: social-media-obsessed studio execs want to sign Phillips not because of his act but due to an amateur YouTube video (the notorious burning ear incident) that has gone viral. Although Phillips wants his musical comedy to speak for itself, the artistic gap between his hackneyed joke songs and the embarrassing slapstick web fame that he decries is not wide enough to make us take Phillips's sudden embrace of dignified integrity seriously. Still, this offbeat indie film that also features Sarah Silverman, Tig Notaro, and Jim Jeffries should be considered a strong optional purchase. (M. Sandlin)
Punching Henry
Well Go <st1_country-region w_st="on"><st1_place w_st="on">USA</st1_place></st1_country-region>, 95 min., not rated, Blu-ray: $29.99, Apr. 18 Volume 32, Issue 4
Punching Henry
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