Jim Breuer: Hardcore (2002)
Film:
DVD:

Features:

• Unaired performance segment
  
• Two early Breuer segments from Comedy Central
  

Released by Comedy Central/WEA
Region: 1
Rating: TV-MA
Anamorphic: N/A

My Advice: Pass.

Jim Breuer has made his name in the comedy world largely on a handful of decent-to-good impersonations and a few signature characters (most notably the vastly irritating "Goat Boy" of SNL fame). While occasionally funny, I was perhaps understandably dubious about a full-on "hour" (closer to forty minutes) special originally made for Comedy Central. Tragically, my suspicions were all-too appropriate. Breuer has an excellent stage presence and rapport with his audience, but the anecdotes shared here are just not his "A" material. Occasionally funny and badly padded out with semi-somber nostalgic reflection, Hardcore gives us a solid fifteen-minute stand-up routine spread over an hour of video.

High spots include his Jack Nicholson impersonation, some remembrances of his days on SNL (particularly meeting DeNiro and Pesci), and a spot-on deconstruction of AC/DC's music via a hilarious rendition of "The Hokey Pokey." Low spots include anything about dogs, discussions of fatherhood, and recollections of his childhood, none of which contain a great deal of humor in the first place, and what little comedy is inserted is of the most tedious scatalogical nature. While I'm certainly up for some good dick and fart jokes from time to time, the operative word here is "good."

In terms of presentation, the video and audio is excellent, as one might expect from such a recent endeavor. There is one minor detail, however, that quickly becomes grating when watching the DVD: commercial cues. I understand this was originally produced for cable network television, so there were obviously intros and outros surrounding the commercial breaks. But why in the hell would you leave those intros and outros intact for the DVD release? Especially since we get eight or nine of them over the course of a forty-minute program? Breuer barely gets a joke out between commercial breaks, and in some cases takes several segments to work through a long anecdote. It's irritating in the extreme. I've only ever seen anime shows do this on DVD, and I think it's a terribly stupid idea there, too. Please let this be the exception and not the new lazy trend in marketing DVDs from originally-TV broadcast material.

The DVD itself is decent enough, including a couple of early spots from Breuer's career filmed for a couple of old Comedy Central stand-up shows. I'd have liked to see some more signiciant SNL stuff, but I imagine the legal rights to any of his work on that show are a hassle that Comedy Central doesn't need to tackle for a fifteen-dollar DVD. The fact that there are any features whatsoever is pretty impressive for a comedy special DVD, though, so credit where it is due.

If you're a huge fan of Breuer's work, then this will definitely belong on your shelf. Those more casually interested might get by with a rental, but I highly recommend giving it a miss. Anybody wanting to hold out for some of Breuer's best stuff needs to petition Comedy Central to start releasing episodes of their old series Pulp Comics, where Jim is as funny as I've ever seen him.