The Jimmy Show

The movie is as unpleasant as its hero, and the film audience gets no more for its money than the customers at the Laughing Stock. Still, watching Whaley take Jimmy down his tortured path has some morbid appeal -- like a train wreck in progress.

Backed by a strong supporting cast, Whaley makes Jimmy a vivid character, but he never achieves anything like the tragic grandeur of a Willy Loman. He's at once too earnest and too unappealing.

Whaley gives an earnest performance, especially when he's articulating his frustrations during his monologues. But it's all relentlessly glum. The film, like Jimmy's routines, could use a few good laughs.

Whaley's determination to immerse you in sheer, unrelenting wretchedness is exhausting.

The kind of movie that is a must to avoid on a bad day. Even on a good one, it could send you into a funk.

Pic has a stagy, boxed-in feel. Both visually and energetically, it suggests something that has been done onstage to the point of mechanized repetition. And even though Whaley is supposed to be playing a disillusioned character, it's the actor himself who seems fatigued and over-rehearsed.