Hardly anybody in show business had a tougher two years than Conan O’Brien in 2009 and 2010. However, given the opportunity to make chicken salad out of a cow’s ear, he leaped at it and went on a live tour, covering 30 cities in “The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television” tour, which was the germ for “Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop,” a new film that opens today.
The documentary is an excellent picture of the comedian, a driven man chasing many devils from one amphitheater to the next. But in the final analysis, this is a performance film, and like all other performance films, if you like the performer you’ll like the film. And the vice is versa. And like most performance documentaries, it spends far more time getting on and off airplanes and limousines, in and out of hotel rooms and lobbies, and backstage at auditoriums than it does on bringing the star to life, whether funny or tuneful or professorial.
I’m an occasional Conan fan. In small doses, I consider him to be very funny. An entire film, even at a rather short 89 minues, is too much for me. But like so many comedians, the moment a light goes on, or the person in the next airplane seat has a quiver of recognition, he’s on — in a big way.
Director Rodman Flender does excellent work in culling through countless hours of film to pick out the good stuff, and there’s a lot of good stuff. There’s some sad stuff, too, as O’Brien faces himself, his past, his future, his present, when NBC promised him the Tonight Show, then snatched it back. It was cruel, and O’Brien reacted with anger.
Following him on tour is a grueling experience. He works very hard to entertain the crowds who filled auditoriums from Eugene Ore., where he really did his first commercial show, across the country and back.
O’Brien works very hard. Sometimes he succeeds; sometimes he does not. But he provides a usually interesting, often-funny movie.
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop Opens Today at the Tivoli
— Joe