Mr. Saturday Night (1992)

Billy at his best
This movie was a revelation, I have always liked his acting but this is the best of his movies that I have seen.

About a funny guy who is also pretty nasty

Billy Crystal stars as an aging stand-up comic (Buddy Young, Jr.) with a mean streak in him. The movie starts off slowly and seemingly predictably, with Crystal and his brother (played by David Paymer) doing comedy together in their Jewish living room to all the relatives, getting some early breaks, and heading up the showbiz ladder. But Paymer opts out of the routine and becomes Cyrstal's manager. After many years and now on the decline, they have a falling out, but reconcile at the end. Comedians have enormous egos, and Crystal as Buddy wouldn't think twice about putting someone down for a laugh. (I've heard the same thing said about the real life Groucho Marx, whose insults directed as his family were funny to everyone except his family. But he didn't care as long as he got a laugh.) He's a funny guy, Buddy is, but not a nice one. The second half of the movie is much better than the first. Humor is in the mind of the beholder (sort of like beauty), and I thought the jokes were mildly funny. It certainly is not the worst movie ever made as some reviewers here seem to think.

It deserved zero stars, actually. Terrible.
Read the negative Amazon comments - they are right. Terrible in all respects. If you like this film, you probably will find the telephone book extremely entertaining.