The Aristocrats review

The Aristocrats is a one-joke movie, and therein lies both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Unbeknownst to the general public, comedians have for years been telling each other a private joke when their shows are over. It's the same joke, or at least it has the same beginning and end, and it's the job of each comedian to put his own spin on the middle part with results that are so scatological that we couldn't even print the mildest version on a family website.

Now Penn Jillette - best-known as the rotund and talkative one of the comedy/magic duo Penn and Teller - has teamed up with comedy veteran Paul Provenza to unmask this joke. Rather like one of those satellite programmes where a magician reveals the inner secrets of famous illusions, Jillette and Provenza round up some of America's best-known comics to hear their own versions, as well as to discuss the joke's origins and importance.

Therefore we are presented with a talking heads-style documentary during which the same joke is repeated upwards of fifty times. The audience's reaction to all of this is likely to depend on their opinion of the joke itself - some may find themselves rolling in the aisles and gasping for breath, while others may well sit there stony-faced wondering what all of the fuss is about.

While a smattering of internationally famous faces grace the screen - from Robin Williams to Billy Connolly - many of the comics will remain firmly best-known to Americans, and their tone and delight in telling their version shows that American humour is still alive and well. The retellings largely involve absurd and disgusting bodily functions, sexual shenanigans and anything as way out there as the comedian can come up with, which after around the 20th time do all begin to have a familiar ring.

Certainly a few jokers come up with something original, or a well-made point concerning the joke's flaws or potential improvements, but overall this is something of a curio, whose format might have been better suited to a shorter affair. Technically it's not helped by the fact that the film was shot over a number of years: there is little consistency in editing and some of the choices do jar.

Nevertheless it does throw some light on the equivalent of a comedian's secret handshake, and the films tagline ('No nudity, No violence, Unspeakable Obscenity') is bang on the money, as this is unlikely to be much of a date movie and is certainly not family viewing. A minor cinematic oddity.

Paul Hurley