The Opening Act

Simple, funny and overall entertaining; "The Opening Act" does a great job at offering viewers an inside look at stand-up comedy thanks to writer/director Steve Byrne's personal approach.

In this comedy, an open mic comic is given the opportunity to emcee a comedy show opening for his comedic hero, but must decide if he wants to continue the life set-up for him or follow his dream.

I loved this film. Not only do things look promising for lead actor Jimmy Yang, but comedian/writer/director Steve Byrne hits a home run. The way the movie is shot and the way it unfolds, you can clearly see how Byrne wanted "The Opening Act" to be different than other films about stand-up comedy and how much heart he put into it. The supporting cast is terrific and overall a feel-good film. If you love comedy, you'll love "The Opening Act".

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I loved The Opening Act, it's so funny :D one of the best comedy movies ever!!! It has (like many movies) a message, that it's best to tell the truth, but above all it was very funny. This movie is absolutely hilarious!

The story has an interesting idea, but is executed very poorly... slow and akward pacing makes the movie very boring. You see very early on that the director and comedian Steve Byrne has not much experience in directing and tries his best to put his personal experience with stand up on the screen. It has some funny jokes and the right message, but lacks in skill set. The acting of the most actors are terrible (and i am huge stand up fan and know all the comedians). The dialog scenes are little off and delivered poorly.

I follow most comedians and their podcasts and was happy to see many known faces but it makes it even more dissapointing to see them in a bad movie.

Seeing the casting, i was expecting this movie to be hilarious, to Laught My Ass Off, but all along the movie i was just smiling and having symphaty (just a little bit) for the main character.... I wouldn't say it's a bad movie but it' s not a great one either, it's just a comedy which is not fun enough to be a good one, and a movie not deep enough to be actually interesting.

Some of the stand up bits are funny but there's no major laugh out loud moments for me. I don't know the fella this is based on, I just saw him on Bill Burr's podcast so I gave the film a watch. It does make it cooler knowing that the stories are all semi-true, especially the whole cop thing.

Some great guest stars (as an Englishman I didn't know all of them though) and it is a nice story. But, now I don't know how far the fella this is based on is in his career (I probably should of looked that up before writing a review) but I assume it's further than where the film ends which I'll get to...

It's a very nicey nicey film and I was never bored, but it seemed like this should of been a TV series to me. The closer and closer I got to the end, I worked out what the finish would be and that disappointed me a little as I feel it should of gone further into this blokes career. Which would of been totally possible in, as I said, a TV series.

Worth a watch especially if you like stand up and if you know some of the guest stars in it.