Entertainment

Critics Consensus

As brilliantly and uncomfortably confrontational as its protagonist, Entertainment is a boundary-blurring exercise in cinematic misanthropy that more than lives up to its title.

83%

TOMATOMETER

Total Count: 52

46%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 1,845
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Movie Info

A broken, aging comedian tours the California desert, lost in a cycle of third-rate venues, novelty tourist attractions, and vain attempts to reach his estranged daughter. By day, he slogs through the barren landscape, inadvertently alienating every acquaintance. At night, he seeks solace in the animation of his onstage persona. Fueled by the promise of a lucrative Hollywood engagement, he trudges through a series of increasingly surreal and volatile encounters.
  • Rating:
    R (for language, crude sexual material, a disturbing image and brief drug use)
  • Genre:
    Drama
  • Directed By:
    Rick Alverson
  • Written By:
    Rick Alverson, Gregg Turkington, Tim Heidecker
  • In Theaters:
     limited
  • On Disc/Streaming:
  • Box Office:
    $55,506
  • Runtime:
  • Studio:
    Magnolia Pictures

Cast

Gregg Turkington
as The Comedian
Michael Cera
as Tommy
John C. Reilly
as John
Tye Sheridan
as Eddie
Dean Stockwell
as Frank
Kalia Prescott
as Maria
Lotte Verbeek
as The Chromotherapist
Tim Heidecker
as The Celebrity
Mariann Gavelo
as Sitcom Maria
Annabella Lwin
as Airplane Tour Guide
Mike Hickey
as The Heckler
Sergio Estrada
as Alejandro
Lawrence Michael Levine
as Heckler Voice
Craig Holland
as Oil Field Tour Guide
Juventino Martin
as Gael
Sergio Estradaa
as Alejandro
Susan Cernas
as Alejandro's Daughter Maria
Kevin Guthrie
as Ghost Town Tour Guide
Fabian Euresti
as Orange Grove Worker
David Yow
as Party Host
Tonantzin Carmelo
as Teresa
Juan Cueto
as Cousin John's Father-in-Law
Amy Seimetz
as Woman in Bar
Natalie Contreras
as Ruben's Girlfriend
Ashley Atwood
as Pregnant Woman
Dustin Guy Defa
as Ruben
Jeffrey Jensen
as Pants the Opener
Sergio Rafael
as Fernando
Joe Sachem
as Hose
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Critic Reviews for Entertainment

All Critics (52) | Top Critics (18) | Fresh (43) | Rotten (9)

  • There's a chic emptiness to "Entertainment," undoubtedly, and anti-comedy constructs that may rub the wrong way, but there's also a spiky intelligence at work too, one that engages through the artifice of disengagement and the illusion of "performance."

    Nov 19, 2015 | Full Review…

    Robert Abele

    Los Angeles Times
    Top Critic

  • It is not fun, but its confrontational style yields dividends.

    Nov 19, 2015 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review…

    Tom Keogh

    Seattle Times
    Top Critic

  • A daring and mainly successful black comedy about a dour and depressive comedian on a dead-end tour of California.

    Nov 19, 2015 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

    J. R. Jones

    Chicago Reader
    Top Critic

  • The Comedian is an ugly man with an ugly soul, and an ugly sense of comedy that at one point literally includes making fart noises for 90 full seconds as he pretends to gun down his silent audience with a soccer trophy.

    Nov 13, 2015 | Rating: 1.5/4 | Full Review…

    Tasha Robinson

    RogerEbert.com
    Top Critic

  • Like Hamburger's meta-hacky comedy routine, the film confronts and challenges in order to produce something increasingly rare in American cinema: an active, engaged experience.

    Nov 13, 2015 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

    John Semley

    Globe and Mail
    Top Critic

  • Weirdly compelling if student-y and unfocused ...

    Nov 13, 2015 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review…

    Kyle Smith

    New York Post
    Top Critic
View All Critic Reviews (52)

Audience Reviews for Entertainment

  • Apr 06, 2016
    None of the reviews to this mentioned Neil Hamburger. This is, essentially, a Sisyphean biopic about Neil Hamburger's career (with a Lynchean twist!). Great shots. Everything else sucks horribly. Sitting through this film was arduous. Without the payoff of a joke that is an occasional happenstance on a Neil Hamburger record, this movie just seems flat. Not even the silly extras (or friends of Rick or Gregg) pulled a laugh out of me. Such a sad film about comedy, and a laughless film about existential worthlessness. But that's ENTERTAINMENT!!!!! sadness and mediocrity. I wish I could drink enough to forget more of this film.
    K Nife C Super Reviewer
  • Nov 19, 2015
    As mean spirited a thing as a thing could be, this relentlessly bitter view of life and of people tells the story of a dive comedian on the road of dive venues. He is not happy. His jokes are not funny. Perhaps the humor of this piece, the "entertainment" is ironic, a statement that nothing is really entertaining, that life is simply shit. Okay. But as an argument over coffee, not as a film experience. Suicide is an redemptive alternative compared to this.
    Kevin M. W Super Reviewer
  • Oct 12, 2015
    Bizarre, divisive, bleak, black comedy, with a superlative music score and an incredibly deranged lead performance.
    Daniel P Super Reviewer
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