Customer Reviews

Roast of Denis Leary Uncensored

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

In the tradition of the New York Friars Club Roasts, Comedy Central's Roast of Denis Leary is deservedly the highest rated program to hit the cable network (next to South Park that is) as it shows the foul-mouthed, scathing comic getting a taste of his own medicine from his closest friends. Hosted by Jeff Garlin of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm and featuring live remarks from Colin Quinn, Adam Ferrara, Lenny Clark, Nick DiPaulo, Dane Cook, Mario Cantone, Dr. Dre & Ed Lover, Jim Breuer, Gina Gershon (performing a musical and dance number), along with taped comments from Conan O'Brien, Rene Russo, Jon Stewart, Peter Gallagher, Christopher Walken, Michael J. Fox, and Joe Mantagna; the Roast of Denis Leary is full out funny from beginning to end. It's definitely worth picking up for Leary fans (his rebuttal at the end is scathingly funny), although I wish more special features would have been put on the DVD.

There are two things wrong with this DVD. The first is that this program is a roast of a man who is known for his rants not bantor so the whole thing comes off flat because this is not the style of humor that Leary or his friends are known for. The funnies person turns out to be his priest. Second this is severely edited. There is an unedited version of Leary's rebutle in the special features and they cut all the good jokes from his rebutle out of the main program. One can only assume that the rest of the program suffered the same fate (as the jokes are not good and do not flow). Also, the editor even cut out pieces of jokes from Leary's rebutle. This means that some jokes were missing the middle and made little sence in the main program. If you like Dennis, go get his DVD with a classic "No Cure for Cancer" and enjoy what he is good at, not what Comedy Central put together for him.

Spend your money on one of Leary's performances, not this painfully unfunny waste of 90 minutes. If you've ever watched a comedian struggle mightily to be funny and fail, you know the sort of discomfort I felt when watching these no-names flail on stage. It's telling that the only names of consequence--Stewart and Leary's cousin O'Brien--literally phoned it in. A typically awkward detail: the director cuts away to Keifer Sutherland reaction shots maybe a dozen times, like he's the President at the Lincoln Center Honors or something. It's utterly bizarre. Leary deserved better. I spent the whole time wishing I were watching him do standup--instead of watching him watch his inferiors. His brief closing remarks are amusing enough, but it's too little too late.

After watching several of the other Comedy Central Roasts, it is easy to say that this one comes in dead last in all aspects. It's hard to describe how unfunny this one was, other than to say that it was a good idea for Comedy Central to add more comedians in later episodes. Basically, most of the people seemed to be there just to hang out and half-ass tease him. There was no energy from any of the roasters, the jokes were completely flat and pointless, the song was hard to hear and wasn't funny either, and the roastmaster himself made a few lame attempts at jokes but mainly just offered praise for everyone that came up to talk. A roast, this was not. Maybe casual banter peppered with a few meaningless and random personal stories. Thank God for Netflix because I didn't have to feel bad about stopping it before it was done.

This may be a keeper for the hard-core Denis Leary fans but for those of us who enjoy the Comedy Central roasts as a whole...to say that this was disappointing is a gross understatement. There were a few good jokes here and there but they were few and far between. Unlike the the typical CC dayus members, Greg Giraldo, Jeff Ross, Lisa Lampanelli, the roasters didn't really let Denis Leary "have it". Personally, I think it was because the majority are all still trying to make it in the film industry and feared that any derogatory remarks towards anyone in the room may have had repercussions down the road. Once again, that's just my opinion. Overall, I think Denis Leary not only deserved a much better roast...we all know he could handle it! What I wouldn't give to have "The Queen of Mean" (Lisa L.) up there for just two minutes...

Someone should do a friggin' roast of this friggin' roast. Chances are that this ROAST OF DENIS LEARY (Uncensored) ranks as one of the least appealing comedy roasts ever put out by Comedy Central (thanks, Comedy Central). There was something off about this one. I'm not sure if it's that the roasters just never really hit it out of the park, or that Gina Gershon's vampy serenade to Leary came off as plain awkward, or maybe it's simply not a roast nowadays unless Jeffrey Ross is there smirking on the dais. Maybe it's because Denis Leary is not big enough of a celeb to merit making fun of, but then how do you explain the goodness that was Bob Saget's roast? Anyway, as you might guess, the roasters take turns riffing on Denis Leary's Quaker State ads, his angry comedian persona, and his iffy choices in his film career.

Jeff Garland is the evening festivity's Roastmaster, and he brings the funny the same way the Ebola Virus brought the funny. Lots of the speakers never bothered to show up in person. So we get underwhelming taped pieces from folks like Joe Mantegna, Christopher Walken, Rene Russo, Michael J. Fox, and Peter Gallagher. Kiefer Sutherland and Elizabeth Hurley sit by Leary's side, and they bring Hollywood glamour but they don't get to talk (which isn't so bad). Dr. Dre & Ed Lover do show up, and so we do get a good jab directed at Liz Hurley's companion. And maybe it's that there are too many in-jokes and too much reminiscing, but some of the chit chat from Denis' closer pals lost me. And I guess there's nothing like a photo slideshow to make Denis' rebuttal seem really off the cuff.

But in a roster riddled with professional comedians, not everyone can possibly suck. There are occasional chuckles induced by Colin Quinn, Adam Ferrara, Nick DiPaolo, Jon Stewart, and Conan O'Brien. Gilbert Godfried is laugh out loud funny as the ranting voice of Denis' pet Irish Wolfhound, Clancy, and Don Gavin is awesome posing as Leary's priest. For the final act, Jim Breuer belts out an edgier, hard-rockier version of Leary's ""I'm an @--hole" song. So there are some redeeming values.

The DVD's bonus stuff includes Denis' rebuttal (uncut); red carpet outtakes, two of which feature Gilbert Godfried; Dr. Dre & Ed Lover's uncut movie segment (which is only marginally longer than what we see in the feature presentation); an unaired and pretty humorous footage of Patrice Oneal portraying American Idol's Ruben Studdard with a lousy attitude; and three Comedy Central quickies: "Sleeping Aid" (from CHappelle's Show); "Attacked by Monkey" (Crank Yankers); and "Smoking is Bad, MMMkay?" (South Park).

I got my movie early and in great shape. I would order from this vendor agian. Thank You and Good Night!

The only bad thing i have to say about this dvd is the fact that they bleep the curses. I thought that was the reason to put it in a dvd was to be uncensored, its just a bit dissapointing thats all. Other than that, the roast was pretty good and leary's rebuttals were classic spcially on mario cantone

ALL comedians 'take' or 'borrow' material and you would know this if you have watched years of stand up comedy! Yes Bill Hicks is certainly one of the best, but get over it! You can watch Bill religiously, remembering all his lines, and still not be able to make people laugh. Denis is a funny guy. His friends are funny guys. The roast is good entertainment for those that aren't offended or precious. It didn't rate it's arse off because everyone thinks Denis stole all his stuff from Hicks. No one cares obviously. Don't fear. Hicks memory is not being stomped on... and lets face it, imitation is the sincerest form of flatery, don't you think? This is a great show, top dvd and I had a good old laugh. Lighten up, have a smoke and knock back a beer. Life isn't to be taken too seriously!

When this aired on Comedy Central the only bad part about it was the bleeps nearly killed the comedy. It's hard to laugh when more words are bleeped out than spoken. I for one am looking forward to seeing the DVD version of the roast, and hope that any future roasts will be hosted on a more suitable channel, or put out on DVD sooner.