The Aristocrats

The Aristocrats
Opens Fri., Aug. 12, at Neptune and Meridian

Stop me if you've heard this one! A guy walks into an agent's office, a Broadway Danny Rose–type place, and says, "I've got a family act to end all family acts!" The agent is dubious. The guy calls in his clan, and they perform their act—or rather, acts, as in acts of bestiality, incest, violence, and eccentric usages of every single bodily fluid. The agent, aghast, splutters, "What—what do you call that act?" Proudly, the family man replies, "The Aristocrats!"

Of course, it's not funny. That's the point. The joke is a secret routine legendary among comedians because it's a subversion of their own acts, the ultimate rebellion—insult, really—against the audience, which comics spend their lives trying to please. It's a blank slate that the comic projects his own personality upon. Each comic's elaborations add up to a self-portrait; the template is so accommodating of egomania that Chevy Chase is said to have stretched its telling out to several hours.

Directors (and comics) Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette filmed over 100 of their favorite colleagues telling versions of "The Aristocrats" and riffing on its significance in cultural history. Not everybody is quite up to it. Eric Idle and Eddie Izzard flop, and Chris Rock, Paul Reiser, and Jon Stewart scarcely rise to the bait. Phyllis Diller claims she fainted when she first heard it. The staff of The Onion is only so-so funny, Robin Williams not much better.

But for the most part, these comics kill. Steven Wright takes the gag into his deadpan parallel dimension of invention. Kevin Pollak tells it in Christopher Walken's voice, then gets beaten by Mario Cantone, who tells it in diverse voices, including Liza Minnelli's. The Simpsons writer Dana Gould makes it an Amish saga. Richard Lewis turns it into a vehicle for his signature self-loathing, Carrie Fisher for her endless family chronicle. I could go on, but I don't want to spoil the impressions made by the Smothers Brothers, Andy Dick, Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Carey, George Carlin, Jason Alexander, Tim Conway, and, startlingly, Bob Saget of Full House.

But the champion of all has got to be Gilbert Gottfried, who spontaneously told "The Aristocrats" at the famous September 2001 Friar's Club Roast of Hugh Hefner. First we see him fail with a 9/11 gag—he tried to get away with saying his plane to L.A. got rerouted through the Empire State Building, mere days after the World Trade Center's fall. ("Too soon!" somebody shouts.) So Gottfried segues into his own sandpaper-throated rendition of the dirtiest joke of all time. Rob Schneider falls out of his chair laughing, and Provenza and Jillette were inspired to make a movie.

Even at 86 minutes, The Aristocrats could have used a few nips and tucks. But I'll be watching all the DVD outtakes Provenza promised while visiting here for SIFF; they'll include Cantone's various other celebrity impressions. The film adds up to an important meditation on the art of comedy. Why is the South Park cartoon version of the joke, competent as it is, less satisfying than, say, Saget's gleeful destruction of his squeaky-clean image? As distinguished professor Carlin observes, "Shock is just another word for surprise, and a joke is about surprising someone." When that someone is another comic, cover your virgin ears. (NR) TIM APPELO

Four Brothers
Opens Fri., Aug. 12, at Meridian and others

Few movies set in Detroit are actually filmed there, and the latest crime melodrama from John Singleton (Shaft) joins an undistinguished club of faux-Motown flicks that includes Narc and Detroit Rock City. What Brothers adds to the genre is a sense of justice that's strongly informed by Leviticus. It's the murder of sweet old Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan) that compels her now-grown adoptive sons—Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), Angel (R&B star Tyrese Gibson), Jeremiah (OutKast's André Benjamin), and Jack (Garrett Hedlund)—to seek an eye for an eye, first from the hired thugs who gunned her down in a convenience store, then from the bigwigs who did the hiring.

In a perfect world, Singleton would have made the most of the talent at his disposal. Four Brothers: A Hip-Hop Musical could have been a cult hit; instead, we're stuck with a "character-driven" yawner in which several slam-bang shoot-outs are rudely interrupted by mawkish moping. (The print screened for critics two weeks ago lacked a finished soundtrack but was otherwise complete, and I'm not reviewing the audio quality.) Wahlberg has a decent series of sullen and vicious moments as the family hothead, but none of his on-screen siblings makes much of an impression. The only one bringing fire to the film is Chiwetel Ejiofor. Unkindly cast as a eunuchlike man of refinement in Melinda and Melinda, the British actor has balls to spare as Victor Sweet, a grinning gangster with a fondness for humiliating people by any means necessary. And while Singleton masterfully uses pristine Toronto to suggest the isolation of Detroit in winter, and the snappy gunplay in the second hour almost redeems the talky first, Brothers is still a long way from 8 Mile. (R) NEAL SCHINDLER