Beginning with "A Day in the Life", Andrew Dice Clay (playing himself, kind of) is a spineless wispy voiced simp who takes abuse from his wife, friends, and random strangers as he fumbles and prats his way around Brooklyn. Things change when Clay has a chance encounter with a leather jacket salesman (also played by Clay) which leads him to adopt his loud brash chain-smoking persona which in turn transitions to the stand up portion of the film featuring his performance at Madison Square Garden.
Andrew Dice Clay (Andrew Silverstein) broke out in the late 80s thanks to a seven minute set in a Rodney Dangerfield special that put him in the national spotlight leading to a deal with 20th Century Fox (from which this film originated) and becoming the first comedian to sell out two consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden. With Dice's newfound stardom came controversy from his abrasive sets and lead to blowback from "decency groups", feminists, and the gay community who often objected to his rhetoric. Dice's magnetism for controversy made many of his affiliates nervous with ABC cancelling development on a one hour drama in which he was slated to star and 20th Century Fox dropping Dice Rules leading it to be released in limited venues by indie, Seven Arts. Now, Dice has gone on record saying his "Diceman" persona is just that, a character, and not reflective of his own personal views which is all well and good, and in recent years Dice has shown himself to be rather versatile with roles in Blue Jasmine and Raising Hope often playing against his well known persona. With that said however, Dice Rules is a humor free slog of 80+ minutes of annoyance with not a single laugh to be had.
The first segment of the film is a 22 minute pre-taped segment consisting of a loose string of set pieces that show a fictionalized pre-fame Dice sporting an exaggerated wispy nasally voice that sounds like Jerry Lewis's nutty professor voice as delivered by Adam Sandler and follows his character suffering abuse from his obese foul mothed wife, a bank teller, a service station attendant, grocery store clerks, and even an acquaintance with Dice engaging in some pretty groan worth physical comedy that he's just not adept to. The short culminates with him playing a duel role as the salesman who gives Dice his trademark leather jacket (sporting a voice that sounds like Popeye) and then the short just ends. The short is painfully unfunny as it's completely bereft of anything resembling a joke, unless of course you count screaming profanity at the top of your lungs to be inherently funny.
Once the sketch is out of the way we move on to the actual meat of this movie, Dice's standup. Watching Dice's standup it's baffling to think he was flavor of the month at one point, his material is as crass and vulgar and expected which is perfectly fine, but the delivery setup and payoff for his jokes is so grating with his overdone Brooklyn persona shout "Ohhhhh!" at the end of every other punchline that it's just comes off as more annoying than funny. I think with the gaudy jacket, the coupled with this cartoon greaser image it makes his set feel like it's surface level gloss like his jacket. There's a set where Dice talks about masturbation (which should be an easy enough humor source) and it falls completely flat, George Carlin also talked about masturbation in his standup but he did it in a funny way by talking about it in the context of his teenage years (like contrasting guys who fantasized about celebrities versus girls in the neighborhood where "it might happen"). Dice's standup just seems to take profanity and/or taboo subject matter and then say it with a Brooklyn accent at full volume and that's where the joke begins and ends.
Dice Rules was clearly intended to be the 90s equivalent of Eddie Murphy Raw, but while the film brings the "Raw" it can't bring the charm or the funny. Dice's Diceman persona doesn't have any humanity or authenticity to performance instead relying on shock for the sake of shock while doing silly voices and funny faces to play up, and the movie gives us both terrible pre-taped sketches and terrible stand-up it's just a waste of time for all involved and I'm thankful that Dice retired this character and moved on to other prospects. If you like shock humor than watch Dennis Leary's No Cure for Cancer or anything with George Carlin, exact same subject matter as Dice, but MILES above in execution.
Andrew Dice Clay (Andrew Silverstein) broke out in the late 80s thanks to a seven minute set in a Rodney Dangerfield special that put him in the national spotlight leading to a deal with 20th Century Fox (from which this film originated) and becoming the first comedian to sell out two consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden. With Dice's newfound stardom came controversy from his abrasive sets and lead to blowback from "decency groups", feminists, and the gay community who often objected to his rhetoric. Dice's magnetism for controversy made many of his affiliates nervous with ABC cancelling development on a one hour drama in which he was slated to star and 20th Century Fox dropping Dice Rules leading it to be released in limited venues by indie, Seven Arts. Now, Dice has gone on record saying his "Diceman" persona is just that, a character, and not reflective of his own personal views which is all well and good, and in recent years Dice has shown himself to be rather versatile with roles in Blue Jasmine and Raising Hope often playing against his well known persona. With that said however, Dice Rules is a humor free slog of 80+ minutes of annoyance with not a single laugh to be had.
The first segment of the film is a 22 minute pre-taped segment consisting of a loose string of set pieces that show a fictionalized pre-fame Dice sporting an exaggerated wispy nasally voice that sounds like Jerry Lewis's nutty professor voice as delivered by Adam Sandler and follows his character suffering abuse from his obese foul mothed wife, a bank teller, a service station attendant, grocery store clerks, and even an acquaintance with Dice engaging in some pretty groan worth physical comedy that he's just not adept to. The short culminates with him playing a duel role as the salesman who gives Dice his trademark leather jacket (sporting a voice that sounds like Popeye) and then the short just ends. The short is painfully unfunny as it's completely bereft of anything resembling a joke, unless of course you count screaming profanity at the top of your lungs to be inherently funny.
Once the sketch is out of the way we move on to the actual meat of this movie, Dice's standup. Watching Dice's standup it's baffling to think he was flavor of the month at one point, his material is as crass and vulgar and expected which is perfectly fine, but the delivery setup and payoff for his jokes is so grating with his overdone Brooklyn persona shout "Ohhhhh!" at the end of every other punchline that it's just comes off as more annoying than funny. I think with the gaudy jacket, the coupled with this cartoon greaser image it makes his set feel like it's surface level gloss like his jacket. There's a set where Dice talks about masturbation (which should be an easy enough humor source) and it falls completely flat, George Carlin also talked about masturbation in his standup but he did it in a funny way by talking about it in the context of his teenage years (like contrasting guys who fantasized about celebrities versus girls in the neighborhood where "it might happen"). Dice's standup just seems to take profanity and/or taboo subject matter and then say it with a Brooklyn accent at full volume and that's where the joke begins and ends.
Dice Rules was clearly intended to be the 90s equivalent of Eddie Murphy Raw, but while the film brings the "Raw" it can't bring the charm or the funny. Dice's Diceman persona doesn't have any humanity or authenticity to performance instead relying on shock for the sake of shock while doing silly voices and funny faces to play up, and the movie gives us both terrible pre-taped sketches and terrible stand-up it's just a waste of time for all involved and I'm thankful that Dice retired this character and moved on to other prospects. If you like shock humor than watch Dennis Leary's No Cure for Cancer or anything with George Carlin, exact same subject matter as Dice, but MILES above in execution.