Review of Heckler (2007) by Timothy S — 13 Dec 2013

If Kennedy's aim was to expose or delve into the titular subject of heckling, it's tough to describe this film as anything but an absolute failure. Viewers begin by seeing what we've come to understand as actual heckling: The interruption of a live performance, forcing the performer and the audience to endure your interruption. We even hear from working comics about how they handle hecklers and the nature of heckling. So far, so good.

But between the first reel and the remaining reels, it seems, Kennedy tries to justify his own godawful decisions by attacking internet posters and low-end critics, who have literally nothing to do with heckling.

The problem with this is that they're not even close to the same thing: A film critic watches a film, goes home, writes about it, and readers can choose to ignore or read the article. The performance is in no way affected by the criticism, because the performance is long-over before the critic has a chance to even see it. Even the harshest of critics is, by nature of the function of film criticism, not a heckler. Unless Roger Ebert was on the set of "Kickin it Old Skool," telling Kennedy how bad a job he was doing, Kennedy's entire premise is predicated on a complete lie.

It's the final reel of this film that reveals what Kennedy's actual beef is: Critics hated "Son of the Mask," so he sees them as hecklers in some fashion. But, in what can only be described as an act of cowardice, Kennedy opts only to grill those small-time internet critics who have no sway, boast few er than a hundred readers, and the angering of whom couldn't harm Kennedy's publicity in the future. He doesn't talk to Richard Roeper. He doesn't talk to Todd McCarthy of the Hollywood reporter, who also panned his recent choices en masse. He opts to talk to some internet troll.

This film, quite dishonestly and in shamefully ham-fisted fashion, seeks to instill the notion in the audience that film critics are the same thing as internet trolls and performance-ruining hecklers, primarily because critics don't like Kennedy's work of the last 13 years.

It's a kvetch, wrapped in a whine, entangled in a pity-party over Kennedy's own piss-poor choice of projects.

As a huge fan of stand-up comedy and someone who takes a particular interest in heckler takedowns, I found it highly insulting not just to the intelligence of the audience, but to those comics who deal with actual hecklers on a day to day basis.