Punchline

55/100. David Seltzer's direction doesn't guide the film along as it should, he doesn't seem to know what direction to go in. . It jumps from comedy, to satire, heavy drama, romance and back again. Sally Fields and Tom Hanks try, but the material they are working with just doesn't know what it wants to be. The romantic angle is completely out of place, and overall the bitterness of the film is a turn off. Even the stand up comedy scenes shown in the film that are supposed to be good, simply aren't. The ending is not satisfying at all. It is a shame the stars didn't get better material, it could have worked so well in different hands.

Tom Hanks performs the "Singing in the Rain" umbrella/street dance number like you'd never imagine it could be. I loved him in this movie. Probably more than the vast majority of his others. His portrayal of an emotionally tormented and lost young man blessed with a tremendous and natural talent for comedy - dark as it may be - broke my heart. I wasn't crazy about Sally Fields as his leading lady - the match up just didn't work for me. But as individuals they were both excellent.

I would recommend it highly. It's not really a comedy as the title might suggest. It is, as I said dark, but with some very warm feelings about giving. I gave it an 8

My father is a stand-up comic, and all I can say is that this film above most others shows comedians for what they truly are. Comedy is truly based out of pain, and the two main characters truly have a great deal of pain in their lives. All the actors give their performances more than two dimensions, and are truthful in what they are dong at all times. If your looking for a laugh out loud comedy, than you'll be greatly disappointed, this film is really about he drama of the life of people who are trying to make it in the entertainment business. As a closing statement, i have heard many comics who were around at the time of this picture say that Tom Hanks was one of the greatest comics that they had seen, and if he had not caught the acting bug first, that he would have been a great comic.

The late Edmund Gwenn on his deathbed said that dying was easy, comedy was hard. I think most entertainers would agree with that. One thing for sure is that if the laughs don't come and in the right places you are doing something wrong.

Tom Hanks and Sally Field are a couple of hopefuls looking to break and they're regulars at the club where Mark Rydell is the emcee. Field is a wife and mother with two girls and married to John Goodman. She's also been told she's funny and wants to see if she can make a living at it.

Hanks is the son of a top flight doctor who has forced his son into going to medical school where he flunks out. There are some real issues here with Hanks desperate to succeed and get to the top of his own field as his father has done.

Hanks best moment is when he does get to perform before some TV executives he breaks down completely on stage. It was a beautiful piece of acting.

Punchline more than most films I've seen, shows that these funny people go through a lot of heartache to make it in that business. Hanks and Field are really good pair of leads and the rest of the cast, most of them playing the denizens of the comedy world lend wonderful support.

If you think you might want to be a comedian, see this movie.

A moderately hard-edged drama about the private and public lives of comedians, with a special emphasis on the desperate lengths they'll go to for a laugh, or to get an edge on the competition. Sally Field is the focal figure, a mousey housewife who feels destined for greatness but can't locate her own voice, while Tom Hanks plays a big supporting role as a natural performer who's an irresponsible, selfish a-hole behind the scenes. It's an uneven picture that doesn't really click for a number of different reasons. Primary among them is this unspoken sense that a movie about comedians should be funny. Though the on-stage segments are indeed quite flat, big punchlines (if you'll forgive the pun) aren't really the point of this story. Less forgivable is the awkward, cloudy relationship between Hanks and Field that dominates the plot, and the constant shifts in tone from one scene to the next. I never got a real handle on where the film was going, what it wanted to be or to say. That writing jokes is hard, I guess? Sometimes the happiest guy in the spotlight is actually a poisonous, miserable bastard? A complicated, tentative take that's puzzling in its lack of a firm identity.