Jeffrey Ross: No Offense - Live from New Jersey

Jeffrey Ross: No Offense (2007)

*** (out of 4)

Comedian Jeffrey Ross returns to his home state of New Jersey for the first time in his career in this 57-minute special. Ross goes through a wide range of topics including various dumps in NJ, internet love, his aunt who died at the age of 104 plus various poems that he wrote. I'll admit that this special starts off extremely hit and miss and I'd say that several people will probably turn the station, which would really be a mistake because the final twenty-five minutes of this thing are downright hilarious. I think the biggest problems early on are the jokes dealing with New Jersey. People from that state might get a laugh out of Ross joking on their state but it's really not all that funny for outsiders. Ross spends sometime picking on the crowd and this is where the majority of the laughs come early on. The special really picks up when Ross starts cracking jokes on his elderly aunt. These jokes are never mean-spirited but they're just downright funny as he discusses what happened after his cousin asked how she died. The answers or reasons Ross goes into will have tears running down your face. The highlight of the film happens when Ross lets a couple people from the audience come on stage to play piano while he reads his poems. The second person, Larry, is downright priceless and the chemistry between the two is so great that it really does feel as if they were doing the routine for years.

Ross is hilarious in this. Especially the part where he brings the talented Stephen Glickman (masquerading as civilian) out of the audience to accompany him with his piano skills while Ross delivers his off-the-wall poetry that would make Steve Allen envious. (Glickman's a gifted funny man in his own right.) If you like Ross's style and content...then you'll love this. Jeff has a great knack for building up a comic moment, which makes for more explosive laughter. He's just as good an actor as he is a comic and I'm surprised he hasn't been cast in more TV and film.

Enjoy!

As Michael said, the second half is funnier than the first, but the first half was still much funnier than most stand-ups at their best. Plenty of genuine laugh out loud moments. The second half was so funny that I had to rewind and rewatch several parts a second time.

With Louis CK essentially gone atm (touring yeah, but you know what I mean) I'm so glad to have dug deeper into Ross' body of work (filling the void). The more I see of him the more I realize what a smart comic he is. I love a stand-up who can make layered jokes, make literally anything funny, and doesn't edit himself. Real fans of stand-up appreciate the FEW comics like this. If you think Kevin Hart is funny, you can't possibly know what I'm talking about. Literally, you can't know.

I just watched this on Tubi, whatever that is, some free thing available from Xfinity (say "Jeffrey Ross into your remote and it'll pull up). And if you haven't seen Roast Battle, watch it!

People wonder why Ross never got a sitcom and this special explains it very well. He frequently steals jokes from sitcoms. He always does it on roasts so why not keep it up in his special? Most people don't know the jokes because he steals from shows that are actually funny like Son of the Beach and Grounded for Life. Ross is a hack whose 15 minutes are over.