Slap Kaufman

Rating: Null/10 (26 February 2000)

Andy Kaufman was a stand up comedian who specialised in antagonising his audiences. Stunts like reading the whole of The Great Gatsby in a mock British accent and having an old woman seemingly die on stage during a performance were standard Kaufman fare.
Yet another product of Saturday Night Live, where his act lip-synching to the Mighty Mouse theme became legendary, not to mention his terrible impersonations using only his "foreign man" voice, Kaufman based his humour on rib kicking assaults on what the audiences demanded of him.
It's a wonder he got any work at all!
Apparently, I don't remember seeing Kaufman, he essentially had a blissed out, hippie like demeanor; a sort of a silly boy determined to make you laugh at something that was just not funny, even plain stupid.
Jim Carrey certainly doesn't portray Andy Kaufman as a dill brained hippy though, although he certainly does impress upon us that Kaufman's motivations were not definable.
Those who know tell us that Carrey's Kaufman was uncannily like the man, but I get the feeling that Carrey was unable, or unwilling, to give Kaufman innocence.
But then the feminists who closed down Kaufman's myriad and increasingly lurid wrestling contests with women probably wouldn't attest to his innocence!
And it seems that Kaufman, who delighted in controversy, would have loved the women howling at him from the side of the wrestling ring, as he would have found it terrific that we still don't know what the hell he was on about.
Man On The Moon becomes the Jim Carrey Show. It's split time structure and unlikable main character leave its audience antagonised and just wanting to slap Jim Carrey. Kaufman fans would by definition be a strange and unconventional lot. They just might love it.