Chris Rock: Bring the Pain

I only saw Chris Rock: Bring the Pain recently, having previously owned the album of the same performance. Although the HBO special shares many routines in common with the album, there is also material not on the recording waiting to be discovered.

Rock's routine is hilarious, with even the most topical bits still funny after fifteen years. Sketches about Marion Barry and the Million Man March continue to draw laughs, long after their expiration dates. Other, politically incorrect lines about race relations in the United States hold up long after the race debates of the nineties. This is in large part due to Chris Rock's energy and skilled delivery of the material.

The last twenty minutes or so of the special drag out somewhat. Rock switches from cutting racial commentary to more standard material dealing with relationships. This material is nowhere near as humorous, and comes as a letdown. Still, the special is well worth watching, and will definitely make you laugh.

Rock repels me when he tries to be in a "real" film. But I have to admit that he is a terrific standup guy.

I assume that's true of him as a person, but what I mean is as a comic. I dive into these things from time to time and am frequently disappointed. Oh, sometimes I laugh but its only a half a laugh until you realize what's happening.

Most standup is insult comedy, usually associated with identity comedy. I'm sure there is an immigrant, Vaudeville history there. But most black comics today do the identity thing.

Rock is sort of a genius in what he does, and since it is so finely tuned it must be conscious.

Here's what he does: he'll take the black community to task for some characteristic or behavior that is taboo to mention in the US. He'll hammer on it until it threatens to catch fire. Then in apparent seamlessness, he'll switch from being outside the group to inside and the switch itself will be funny.

For instance, he'll riff on OJ and violent blacks and how OJ's wife deserved to be killed. People will howl with nervous laughter. Then without missing a beat or change tone, he'll make fun of such an attitude. Poking fun at stupid blacks who think this way. The laughter will not start anew but continue from the old, building layer upon layer. Then he'll switch back, talking about slapping a bitch around, Then another switch about how that's not acceptable. People still laughing. Oh, he'd never, never (many nevers) hit a woman....

But he'd shake the bleep out her, and he caps it off by acting out this violence. Weeping, hurting laughter.

Its because the man knows the precise point at which the boundary can be pushed. When he gets just to that point, just barely there, he pirouettes to the other side and pushes back until the boundary is dangerously close to breaking the other way.

It's brilliant, because no one at all talks about that boundary in the US. Not seriously. So we get a couple things. We get to see a dancing concept master do his stuff. We get to confront something we avoid at all costs. We get to see risk in him and it makes us free to take some risks. Oh, we laugh.

But we love the guy too.

I've seen a few other shows. I think this is the best.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I wasn't a Chris Rock fan until I saw this show. I'd catch just a few moments of the show while channel surfing, and didn't think much of it. One night, out of boredom I watched a few minutes of his material and was floored. I couldn't believe how funny he was. On further airings I caught the complete show, and discovered his humour also contained cutting social insights which added to the humor.

While he is more popular for his recent concerts like "Never Scared" and "Bigger and Blacker" to his HBO T.V. Show as well as his early work on "Saturday Night Live," this is a must-own for any fan of the brilliant and daring Chris Rock.

This was his first "big" concert for the Home Box Office and it did deserve the Emmeys it got because it is very well written and will cause laughter to ensue every minute!

Rock wisely mixes his vulgar words along with his political views and general beliefs, thus, allowing each act to have a message behind it as well as the punchline getting executed 'no problem.'

While he is incredibly similar to his idol's Richard Pryor, George Carlin and Eddie Murphy, Chris relies less on "shock value" and doesn't repeat himself as often as other comedians do.

Recommended for people 16 and up ( contains strong language and brief sexual humor ).

Chris Rock's Bring the Pain may be the funniest stand-up comedy I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The barbs are excrutiatingly accurate, raunchy, and hilarious, and are (no kidding) extraordinarily thought-provoking.

Just so you know where my commentary is coming from, I am a 40 year old, white, middle-class male from Houston, Texas. I have seen Rock's talk show on HBO, and haven't really cared for it. I thought he was reasonably entertaining on Saturday Night Live, but nothing spectacular. When it comes to stand-up comedy, I'm a big fan of circa 1978 Steve Martin stand-up (Wild and Crazy Guy) and I love Seinfeld's 'I'm Telling You for the Last Time'.

Do yourself a favor, rent/buy 'Bring the Pain' and prepare yourself for some mind-blowing, prejudice-shattering, side-splitting hilarity.