Review by Rob:
After years and years of working his way up the comedy ladder, Jim Jeffries seems to have arrived with his new weekly show on Comedy Central which highlights his ability to offer actually funny commentary on today’s events and environment, a talent Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel either never had or lost on election night, November 2016. Jeffries is clearly anit-Trump, but at least he’s funny about it. “He’s an idiot,” isn’t a punchline.
However, his stand-up has been evolving and changing in ways that have been erratic and inconsistent, as demonstrated in his newest Netflix special which has some really high highs and some really low lows. Recorded in London, the problems start there. There’s at least 10 minutes of this special that are worthless and meaningless to an American audience. The references to British politics and lifestyle and unrelatable and boring, with the one exception of when he is brilliantly and hysterically eviscerating European men for not being circumcised. It’s edgy, raw, offensive, controversial and funny as hell. And that, when it comes to stand up, is Jeffries lane. While he may have become famous with his 16 minute “gun control,” routine, he’s at his best on stage being raw and raunchy on issues ranging from his food poisoned son to miscarried dead babies in heaven and even his still and always latently burning hatred for women at their core.
“This is me now,” is essentially the same Jefferies I saw live in Reno months ago, minus the absolute best part; his ability to destroy hecklers. Truth be told, they had cameras at the Reno show and they should have used that version of this act. His stories in the Netflix special are not told with the same energy the night I saw him. They’re still funny, but this isn’t his best. Sideways Thumb.
