Product Details

• Actors: Sally Field, Tom Hanks, John Goodman, Mark Rydell, Kim Greist
• Directors: David Seltzer
• Writers: David Seltzer
• Producers: Daniel Melnick, Janice Yarbrough, Jerry A. Baerwitz, Jim Van Wyck, Michael I. Rachmil
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Georgian, Chinese, Thai
• Dubbed: French
• Subtitles for the Hearing Impaired: English
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click .
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: July 9, 2002
• Run Time: 128 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005UO29
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #92,568 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Punchline" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

At the height of the standup-comedy boom of the 1980s, this film offered the revelation that many comedians were, in fact, rather psychologically unstable individuals for whom performing was an outlet for hostility and aggression. Wow--who would have guessed? This film focuses on two who meet and forge an unlikely friendship: Tom Hanks plays a caustic, self-destructive comic looking for his big break and Sally Field plays a more Roseannelike comedian who begins neglecting her husband (John Goodman) and children because she gets such a kick out of performing. The offstage stuff is strictly soap opera, but Hanks and Field both develop solid comedic rhythms once they get behind a microphone. --Marshall Fine

Product Description

At the height of the standup-comedy boom of the 1980s, this film offered the revelation that many comedians were, in fact, rather psychologically unstable individuals for whom performing was an outlet for hostility and aggression. Wow--who would have guessed? This film focuses on two who meet and forge an unlikely friendship: Tom Hanks plays a caustic, self-destructive comic looking for his big break and Sally Field plays a more Roseannelike comedian who begins neglecting her husband (John Goodman) and children because she gets such a kick out of performing. The offstage stuff is strictly soap opera, but Hanks and Field both develop solid comedic rhythms once they get behind a microphone. --Marshall Fine

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Underrated, almost brilliant, but flawed June 19, 2002

By Dennis Littrell HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:VHS Tape

Punchline begins with an engaging premise. Steven Gold (Tom Hanks at age 31) is a med student driven by his physician father to become a doctor. But Steven hates medical school, can't stand the sight of blood, etc. Instead of going to class, he goes to the local comedy club (The Gas Station). Instead of doing his homework, he does standup. He's very good. Lilah Krytsick (Sally Field at 42) is a frumpy Jersey housewife with three kids and a husband (John Goodman) who sells insurance. He wants her to stay home nights, but she has a passion for wanting to make people laugh. So she too moonlights at The Gas Station. She is not funny. In desperation she spends five hundred dollars of household funds to buy jokes to use on the audience. Everything bombs.

Meanwhile, Steven is a little behind in his rent and thinks that, what the hey, he can sell Lilah some jokes. But it never comes to that. Instead he becomes enchanted with her and helps her break free of her inhibitions and perform naturally and effectively on stage. Can true love be far behind? (Rhetorical question, but the answer is not pat.)

If you are a Tom Hanks fan, see this movie. You will be delighted. He puts on a versatile performance depicting a guy who needed to be, in the very fiber of his being, a comedian. The role shows off his talent, and makes us understand why he is now, at the relatively young age of 45, one of America's premiere screen idols.

The rest of the movie, however, is a mix of strengths and weaknesses. Sally Field, in a difficult role, gives an uneven performance which I think is partly the fault of director David Seltzer, who also wrote the script. His direction is brilliant and awful by turns. In particular the schmaltzy, unnecessarily unrealistic ending is very disappointing. He also dug himself a hole because the top comedic performance had to be the last, yet it wasn't. All the expectations of the audience fell, and perhaps that is why Seltzer stuck himself with an ending that played like something devised by a committee of filmland execs intent on political correctness above all else. Also, any difference between the John Goodman who played Rosanne Arnold's husband on TV and the John Goodman here was not immediately discernable.

However some of the scenes were just perfect I especially liked it when Steven's overbearing father (instead of a network producer) shows up at the club. Steven Gold's anguished, self-revelatory on stage reaction is excellent. --Or when Lilah rushes to prepare dinner slapstick style for company; or when night is done and it's four or five am and Steven has helped her discover herself and he asks how she will explain being out all night to her husband and she says she will crawl into bed with one of the kids and he will think she slept there all night. Also good was the singing in the rain scene and the scene in which the daughter, showing the wisdom of children, says to Lilah, after her husband asks to see her perform, "Say yes, mom." Also good were the motley troupe of semi-pro comedians, including a fine performance by Mark Rydell as Romeo, the manager of the club.

This rates a five point something at IMDb, but that's a little unfair. It's a better movie than that. See it for Tom Hanks, and for David Seltzer, who just missed making a great movie.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Tom Hanks looks so young! January 22, 2001

By A Customer

Format:VHS Tape

I caught this film on HBO or Showtime the other night, after not having seen it in years and I have to say that it's better than I remembered it. I totally loved the non-standup comedy details of the film- Hanks making comments about "going under" as he tries in vein to clean himself up before going onstage after not having taken a shower in awhile due to the fact that he's been kicked out of his apartment, Sally Field's portrayol of a woman wanting more in her life than just motherhood, etc. You really get the feeling that these are real people with dreams and you want to root for them, hoping that they'll "make it". I found myself getting nervous before each of their stand up performances. Anyway, great film, highly recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars It's more than a film on comedy club October 11, 1999

By BM

Format:VHS Tape

Chaplin said comedy is tragedy plus time. I love the character Tom Hanks plays, a medical student who fears blood and would not have opted for learning in surgery but for his parental instructions. What really moves me is not the lines (they are funny) but the philiosophy the whole film brings out - be yourself, always.