Many in the audience rankled as Rick Alverson's The Comedy played in competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Those who remained were punished to the end by this relentlessly aimless, abrasive stab at black humor. Comedian Tim Heidecker (Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie), an interesting, disheveled screen presence, could have made something of his role as Swanson, a slacker Brooklynite who is waiting apathetically for his rich dad to die. But Heidecker is given little to do here except move his butt and beer gut from one torpid scene to the next, saying hurtful, hateful, unfunny things to whomever he is paired with, including put-upon cab drivers. Did I mention that The Comedy ultimately isn't one?
