Allah Made Me Funny

Allah Made Me Funny is the most annoying and least funny stand-up comic documentary ever made. There's no cultural divide to cross or great insight into other religions to divine. This film focuses on three comedians who just aren't very funny. Similar documentaries like The Original Kings of Comedy or the more recent Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland (say that three times real fast) offered seasoned performers going it alone against un-recruited audiences.
That's not to say Allah Made Me Funny is bad in the sense that Hollywood movies are bad. It's more a matter of it having the integrity of an infomercial and sloppy production values. If you want to talk bad there were nine films released last weekend and a couple of studio films were just plain old bad. I'm talking about Beverly Hills Chihuahua and How to Lose Friends & Alienate People.
Beverly Hills Chihuahua would have Uncle Walt grimacing with disdain. This critic loves Disney films from the past like The Three Lives of Thomasina or the original The Incredible Journey. Those were films made with love, a heartfelt poem to animals. Chihuahua takes the Babe talking animal routine and dumps it to the bottom of the barnyard trough. Disney can't market a film like Swing Vote or Miracle at St. Anna but they can sell the shit out of talking animals, which in Chihuahua includes a cute rat and iguana. By contrast MGM totally botched up what should've been the male equivalent of The Devil Wears Prada. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People chronicles a brash male writer who goes to work for Vanity Fair. The jokes all fall flat, the humor is too broad when it should be subtle and proven performers like Simon Pegg and Jeff Bridges are wasted with misdirection.
But back to Allah Made Me Funny. The three comics, Preacher Moss, Azhar Usman and Mohammed Amer tell jokes that made me wince rather than grin. None of the material was risque or blue, a trademark for stand-ups. The audience was part of the package. The whole thing was filmed before a recruited crowd that seemed to laugh on cue because that's what they were there to do. Maybe if the filmmakers had actually followed the trio in real nightclub situations the film would have some veracity.
Ironically a similar film, one that documented Muslim stand-up comics in comedy clubs and was made by Houston filmmakers Sooudebeh and James Babcock, Comedy Middle Eastern Style (available through cinemaguild.com) covered the same material only for real.
Allah Made Me Funny may not provide many laughs but it does show that the world of comedy isn't limited to any specific demographic. Everyone thinks they're funny and getting on a stage in front of people at least develops their instincts.