Customer Reviews

Hacks

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this movie a couple of weeks ago for the simple fact that 1) Jim Gaffigan is in it and 2) the critical reviews available online are all very strong.

I think if you bother to watch the movie more than once (which I did because there are so many things happening so fast) you'll see that it's not some sophomoric collection of potty humor. It's actually very sad, uncomfortable and subversive.

This movie is not for everyone, CLEARLY, but if you like raw, independent, dark films, then this is definitely for you. Highly recommended.

If you are a fan of Spinal Tap, you will LOVE this movie. It's not like anything else - very unique in its humor. It's very,very dark and very smart. You'll pee yourself laughing. TONS of amazing extras and one of the best director's commentaries I've ever heard. Well worth the cost.

This is one of the funniest movie EVER. Obviously low budget, but it had me laughing from start to finish.

The film is a black and white 'mockumentary' about a talent agency specializing in stand-up comics. It shows the world of stand-up comedy from a particularly skewed point of view. All the comics involved are talentless hacks, but funny characters nonetheless.

Extras: great deleted scenes, and one of the best director's commentaries I've ever heard, plus another commentary and other stuff.

Also, the film isn't rated but has a PARENTAL ADVISORY. This is mostly for language and adult situations. There is a little non-sexual nudity, but it's just funny, not at all sexy.

Terrible. Is this a movie or a guy that produce a video after randomly shooting stuff?! save yourself $6 and don't get this

GOD IS THIS SUBVERSIVE! This is the most riotously funny discovery to rock me off the chair. If comedy means your face hurts from laughing and your mind is @#$%^&, then OMIGOD, why isn't this in theaters?!?!?! Better that it ISN'T. Let it be a way cool little secret that no one else knows about....

Hacks is depicted in a documentary style which tells the audience a story about Lucius Diamond and Baxter Hutz, two incompetent hustlers, who run a pathetic comedy agency. The agency has signed on a bunch of terrible stand-up comedians and they are preparing themselves for a tour and a comedy festival. On the trip, the audience gets to know the comedians and soon realizes that a joke does not have to be funny. As the story goes on, the audience will find out what it takes to be a real comedian and not a pretender. The truth is that it takes personality, talent, and skill to be funny, which none of the comedians in the film seem to possess. There are moments in the film that are hilarious, but those are the moments when they are not performing. When they perform it is almost depressing to think that these comedians are actually trying to be funny on stage, and this actually becomes an entertaining farce. At the end, the audience is left with a cinematic experience that is fairly interesting.

This is a vulgar yet oddly poignant film. Low budget to be sure, tasteless and unpleasant at times, but not bad. I view it as a tragicomedy, because I moved in that milieu for a time and saw the shattered hopes and dashed dreams of the struggling comics.

And I was once friends with one of the actors, a talented fellow named John Roach, who curiously plays a character named John "Roachy" Galt. A strange homage to Ayn Rand, I assume. It is a fine performance. No one can play Jack like Jack.

Roach is a gifted mimic, but a man born at the wrong time. If he had been born twenty years earlier, he could have been the busiest comic and character actor in the golden age of television. Or maybe not. His demons would still be there, eh, Jack, my old friend.

Do you know who this is, Jack? You are remembered affectionately and fondly, despite what you may think of me.

Godspeed, Jack Roach. Follow your bliss.