Himself
The Unbookables is a narrative documentary about stand-up comics who have spent their careers pushing limits--on stage and off. Relegated to small venues and touring in a crappy van through the Midwest they careen between the desire to succeed and the reality that there may be nothing left to lose. Road life is far from glamorous: comics come and go and cruel pranks and hard drinking punctuate their obsidian dark comedy on stage. They succeed and fail-spectacularly. When they face being fired for going too far on stage, the conflict culminates in a showdown: compromise or double down?
Inspired by Dave Attell's popular Comedy Central series, this concert movie deposits him and three fellow comics, including the wildly popular Dane Cook, at the House of Blues in Las Vegas to deliver some raucous and frequently funny material before an appreciative crowd. Those who know Attell's misanthropic stage persona from his series won't be disappointed by his material here, though he functions mainly as host for his three co-headliners. Rouse takes the easy route with jokes aimed straight for the heart of the rowdy audience (sex, booze, drugs), Giraldo mixes gags based around fatherhood with some political humor, while Cook, whose status has blossomed to near-superstardom thanks to tours like this, is broad and fairly foul-mouthed, but gives an engagingly manic performance, which is well received by the heavily lubricated twenty-something crowd.
