Robin Williams: Weapons of Self Destruction

TV Special
2009
Not Rated
1h 30m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Robin Williams: Weapons of Self Destruction (2009)

The master comedian performs in Washington DC and gives his wry observations about life, politics and his health.The master comedian performs in Washington DC and gives his wry observations about life, politics and his health.The master comedian performs in Washington DC and gives his wry observations about life, politics and his health.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.8/10

3.6K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 3 Primetime Emmys
- 4 nominations total

Photos10

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Robin Williams

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Director
- Marty Callner
Writer
- Robin Williams
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

User reviews15

7.83.6K

Featured reviews

4tbagletsbeef

I'll stick with the movies.

I have a lot of respect for robin & I think he is a fantastic actor, both Comedy wise & in his more sombre roles. However, I found very little funny about this show. Maybe it's my Australian sense of humor or maybe I expected something more akin to Lee Mack or Dave Chappelle. Unfortunately it was neither...instead it was a nervous sounding robin doing impressions of Hasidic Jews, old southerners making stupid noises and then shooting off to some completely unrelated subject like heart surgery or Obama. After the first time struggling to sit it through it I thought...well maybe I didn't approach it with the right mindset. Maybe I was just not used to his style of comedy. So I watched it again and no..I stand by my original opinion. But hey comedy is like apples & oranges, just so happens i'm not a fan of citrus.

6leonblackwood

Great Stand-Up! 6/10

Review: This movie wasn't as funny as the Live on Broadway stand-up, but it's still funny. He uses the same concept as the Live on Broadway stand-up, but the jokes are more up to date, especially the ending which cracked me up. The older Robin Williams gets is the more toned down his act is but you can't beat his his unique writing and his amazing stage performance. Like his previous stand-up acts, he touches on political and sexual matters and he even talks about being an alcoholic and his time in rehab. Anyway, if you like me, and you've grown up watching Robin Williams movies, then his stand-up is definitely worth a watch. Enjoyable!

Round-Up: The bonus material on the DVD is excellent because you get to see Robin Williams taking his act to different states and you see some of his older work which was excellent. Due to his sad passing, it's really sad to know that he won't be coming out with some new material because there really isn't anyone else like him.

I recommend this movie to people who are into there stand-up comedies which cover everything from politics to sex. 6/10

10lee_eisenberg

just hilarious

I saw Robin Williams in concert in 2002 and was hoarse from laughing by the end of the concert. "Robin Williams: Weapons of Self Destruction" is the same sort of humor, except focusing on more recent topics (namely Sarah Palin). As always with Williams, he's always a joke or two ahead by the time you figure out a joke, and laughing the whole time. One or two of the jokes I had heard before, but it's still a hoot how he puts everything out, complete with various accents (his Scottish accent is always the best).

This is certainly one of Williams's best. It shows that without a doubt, Williams is best in unrestrained form (I have no plans to ever see "Old Dogs"). Just hilarious.

8StevePulaski

A fitting, standup swan song

As of yesterday, August 11, 2014, Robin Williams: Weapons of Self Destruction stands as the final televised comedy special by the man we'll ever see, and to leave a career off on this particular show isn't at all a bad thing. At fifty-eight years old at the time of filming this, Williams seems as energetic and zealous as ever, prancing around the stage for eighty-nine minutes, with no breaks or intermissions, showing himself as a nonstop comedic force of nature. In such a short time, Williams show himself doing great impressions, questioning life, and doing something few film roles allowed him to do - be so brazenly crude and bawdy.

Despite his crudeness, Williams entices with a certain sense of wit and wordplay to his mannerisms and lectures. Williams, for one, transitions from topic-to-topic, regardless of how outlandish the previous topic was, smoothly and fearlessly, never missing a beat or interrupting himself, resulting in a lost sense of continuity. In five minutes, Williams amusingly and thoughtfully discusses wildfires, marijuana, tornadoes, and hurricanes, making easy transitions into each topic. He continues on by frequently dropping hilarious jokes, such as the commonality between a tornado and a divorce in the south is that someone inevitably loses a trailer and that the reasons Germany doesn't have any comedians or funny personalities is because they tried to kill them all decades back.

Arguably the most entertaining is when Williams reminds us how asinine our recent history has been, saying that "it's like we've been on the drug 'f*** it all' for the past eight years," as he recounts political events from 2000 to 2008. Through and through, Williams is entertaining as hell, spirited, clearly working off of ample amounts of energy, not fumes of it, and offering advice and keen observations at every turn. He even gives us one of the most memorable statements on marriage I've ever heard which is, "there are penalties for early withdrawal and depositing into another account."

Directed by: Marty Callner.

9Quinoa1984

a million things on Williams mind, and most of them make for comic gold

Robin Williams' mind moves at a clip that is still unfathomable. He's reaching into his late 50's, and yet with a few bottles of water on stage (far less than he had at his 2002 Broadway show, but I digress) he can go on a series of topics with rapid-fire energy and a clarity that is incredible. His topics range from topical to more philosophical, but not exactly in the George Carlin sense. No, he has some more 'unique' ways of talking about the human condition, such as his closing act about how human beings would go about (or mostly just talk about) creating the male and female sexual organs. Just watching and listening Williams describe in full anatomical detail like it's interior decorating is some of the funniest and sharpest material of the decade.

Some of the jokes may fall flat or not connect quite as much as Williams intends, but why carp? Just around the bend will be another joke that will rip your vocal chords out and have you glad he took you along the way. No one is spared- certainly not the past president Bush and his people- and there's always a voice or a character or vulgarity waiting to come out of his head and at the audience. It's mostly masterful work by a comedian who knows what he's talking about every step of the way, even if it would appear he might trail off and never come back to what he was talking about before. You'll want to re-watch it to see what you missed, or to just have the experience of some of his crazier stories like getting heart surgery ("Hm, a pig or a cow heart valve?") and the dangers of non-sexual-intended Viagra!

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Did you know

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Trivia
The story of Doc Ellis pitching a no-hitter on LSD is true. Just as he had taken a hit of it, his girlfriend told him he was pitching that day, and when he said it was his day off, she reminded him that he had slept away his day off.

Quotes
Robin Williams: We're a heavily medicated society. All the drugs we take: Prozac, Effexor, Valium. I thought for the last ten years, we've been on some weird fucking drug - the whole country - called "Fukitol."
[laughter]
Robin Williams: What a weird fucking drug. And we're just coming out of it and we're kind of waking up.
[cheers and applause]
Robin Williams: Fuckin' A! It's weird. It's like you're going "last thing I remember was the economy was working and there was a budget surplus." Yeah! "Where's Clinton?" We impeached him. "Fuck!"
[laughter]
Robin Williams: "For what?" A blowjob. "Wow! Who did he blow, Putin?"
[laughter]
Robin Williams: No! No, he got blown by a Jewish girl. "Wow! He got head from a Jewish girl? Fuckin' A! And they impeached him for that?" Well, he lied about it. "He's married! Who wouldn't? What the fuck?"
[laughter]
Robin Williams: No, he lied about it to Congress. "And THOSE fuckers impeached him? That's like a group of lepers judging a beauty contest. What the fuck?"
[laughter]
Robin Williams: "Wow, that's nuts!" And then they acquitted him. "Oh, cool. And who was president next? Gore?" No, Bush. "He was already president!" No, this was his son. "Oh, the one from Florida. He's kinda cool." No, the one from Texas. "JUNIOR? Fuck! My God, he... the one who traded Sammy Sosa?" Fuck yeah! "How was he as president?" Kinda goofy. "Really?" He waved at Stevie Wonder.
[laughter]
Robin Williams: "What the fuck!" It's like, "Wow! And then what did he do?" Well, he took a lot of vacations. "And then what happened?" We got attacked. "By who?" Osama bin Laden. "That guy from Afghanistan? Didn't we used to send him weapons?" Yeah, I know! "We went after him, right?" Yeah. "Did we get him?" Almost.
[laughter]
Robin Williams: "Well, what do you mean 'almost'?" Well, we went after Hussein, because he had weapons of mass destruction. "That guy from Syria. I knew that fuck would do this." No, the one from Iraq. "SADDAM Hussein? Bush Sr. kicked his ass!" Yeah, he did! "And we got him?" Oh, fuck, we got him. "And we found the weapons of mass destruction? Cause he would tell you where they are." Well, they executed him. "Fuck off! And did you get bin Laden?" Almost. We got four of his number threes. "Okay. But he's in Afghanistan." Maybe. He might be in Pakistan. "Well, let's go after him in Pakistan!" Well, there's a problem there. They're allies, and they have weapons of mass destruction. "Oh, no! What about the economy?" Well, we had to bail out the banks. "Again?" Fuck, yeah! "And now, who's the president?" A black guy. "Oh, yeah right." Yeah, there's a black president and a Latino on the Supreme Court. "There is? Oh, my God! Who's the president? Jesse Jackson?" No, his name is Barack Hussein Obama. "Now you're fucking with me!"
[laughter]