Russell Peters: Almost Famous

Can't stop laughing

Moviecut—Russell Peters: Almost Famous

source: Russell Peters: Almost Famous

Russel is known for his accent, and comedy about countries around the world. He showed alot of that in this special, and I was crying of laughter!

Working with the race topic wasn't the issue. The issue was his execution of the material and half a**ed stories with attention deficient follow-ups. Two spotlight materials were about a castle bed and differences in sleep..., other ones were not so engaging and strongly structured. He used to convince people even if what he says is laced with absurdity, this time around that isn't reflected and also what happened to his care-free observations and insights from cultural involvement (...maybe the peter joke). Range of topics is also an issue, it is time to evolve but this isn't attempted maybe its the love for laziness or LA might have changed him.

I have to agree with the other reviewers that this feels a bit repetitive. I had high hopes for this show as I like Russell Peters and to be honest I hoped he would try something different, just another subject than the usual different races jokes but he didn't. So it just feels like a déjà-vu. I loved his first show Outsourced from 2006, that was simply his best. The second show I watched from him, Notorious from 2013 was good as well but you already had that feeling his material is kinda the same but it was still good. I don't say Almost Famous didn't get me laughing (those extremely negative scores are ridiculous by the way), but I was just hoping for another approach, just to see if he had it in him. But I still had fun, his interaction with the audience is always good, and so is his improvisation, but like said before it's a bit of a déjà-vu. If you never saw anything from Russell Peters I recommend you watch his first show, that still remains his best.

I wasted my 15 mins. Feel bad for the audience. His jokes were cringeworthy, not funny at all. There was no story at all. Please do not watch.

Peters starts off with insult humor about the audience members. I've always found this type of humor cheap, since in this setting it's clearly punching down. He makes fun of Chinese people for being small or not being able to drive. I don't mind poking fun at racial stereotypes, it's just that these jokes are played out. It's the same stuff kids said during lunch at middle school. Why would I pay to see it during a special? A lot of the set ups don't really make sense. He tries to suggest a psychiatrist isn't a real doctor by mocking psychologists. Does he not realizing the two professions are completely different? He later declares that surgeons are real doctors, but orthopedists aren't. But the majority of orthopedists are essentially joint surgeons, who tend to perform the most surgeries out of the all the surgical fields, since joints are highly prone to injury relative to other body parts. So the insult falls flat. Lazy humor with poorly crafted set-ups. Don't bother.

I truly enjoyed some of Peters' earlier stand-up shows. He has several jokes that will live on for years to come. But, having said that, this performance left a lot to be desired. I made it about halfway through before I realized I wasn't laughing, just sort of zoning in and out while staring at the TV. It was then that I also realized the audience wasn't really laughing either. There was scattered laughter and chuckles here and there, but I'm thinking, "If I'd paid for a ticket, driven, parked, stood in line and sat in a seat, I'd expect to be rolling on the floor".... NOT just politely chuckling. The jokes were transparent. I could often guess the punch line. Really, it was a bunch of incoherent stories that set up an opportunity for him to use the accents and impersonations he's know for. I've read other reviews and some people pointed out the "funniest" jokes.... and they weren't all that great. Nowhere near his earlier stuff. Disappointed! Watch his earlier routines. Don't waste your time.

Russel Peters has always used race as his primary choice of material and this time it is no exception. However, he usually focuses on outside (non north America) world to make fun of, specially Indians and over the years, Asian, African, and many other countries and continents. However, this time his focus was more on America and he has fall short. Except for the daughter and sleeping joke, nothing quite stands out and those too seemed very predictable. The stand up seemed very incoherent and non-cooperative audience members at times didn't help much; although talking to audience members is one of his strongest suits. I expected more out of this routine as it has been 3 years since his last outing. Either he needs to add more to his source material or reignite it somehow. It is still a good stand up but simply not up to his own high standards. To sum it all up in one word: disappointing!