The King of Comedy is another addition to my list of kino cinema I've watched this year. It starts out slow but once the pace starts picking up you're in for a wild ride. Robert De Niro as always plays a great performance, this time as an up-and-coming comedian Rupert Pupkin trying to make it big in showbiz. The film shares a lot of similarities with Taxi Driver and Joker, coincidentally all three starring De Niro. As you might expect, this movie is part of the 'sigma male cinematic universe' along the likes of Drive, American Psycho and Courage the Cowardly Dog.
I wasn't particularly fond of the start of the movie as it jumps a lot in between cuts where Rupert discusses about being on the show with Jerry Langford, hottest comedian in America played by Jerry Lewis. Only later does the film show you that it isn't being completely honest with you, leaving you to have to determine for yourself if what played out actually happened or was it just part of Rupert's fantasies. Halfway through the movie however, as Rupert becomes more deliberate in his means does the film make it clear to you that everything that goes on from that point on is real. Ironic as Rupert's insanity correlates inversely as to how clearly he's thinking and him being set on what he's going to do, with the milder delusions being fake and the dangerous stunts he pulls being real.
Ultimately, while the mischief and hanky-panky he teamed up with a Jerry stan he did was not something that you'd want to replicate in real life, the film does provide a very good message of rejecting the idea of 'being realistic'. If Rupert had waited for Jerry's team to contact him, or did small gigs that offers the unsteady promise of leading him somewhere, the legend of the King would have never been known. I believe that a lot of people living in mediocrity could learn a little something from this movie and try something out of the ordinary to be a step closer to being a legend.
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Also, I bet you guys would enjoy this one since the ending could be interpreted as Rupert just having a 109 minute schizo episode.