DEAD CROWD

Barton, a professional comic, presumably knows whereof he denigrates. Still, the funnymen and their satellites—agents, managers, club-owners—he evokes do appear to suffer disproportionately. Consider misused Bernie Coleman, proprietor of Flugelman’s. He’s a mite greedy, a shade dishonest, more than a little self-involved, but saints don’t book comedy acts. True, there was that one shameful night Bernie shorted three of his acts—series hero Biff Kincaid included—a few hundred bucks, but though that’s certainly chintzy, is it really the end of the world? Well, it’s the end of his, as Biff discovers when he finds Bernie with a kitchen knife protruding from his chest. At this point, your garden-variety comedian would have pecked out 911, obligingly waited for the cops, and then hurried on to another nightspot to steal some material. Biff, however, instantly trades his funnyman’s hat for a deerstalker’s cap and a shot at playing Sherlock. Which of Bernie’s many enthusiastic detractors actually hated him? Was it the escaped con with an unquenchable yen to do standup? The fast-rising star with an enigmatic connection to Bernie that involved riotous behavior caught on tape? Bernie’s bitter ex-wife? Bernie’s seemingly helpless, homeless son? Though warned off, beaten up, and darn near killed, unstoppable Biff outhustles the cops, proving once again (Killer Material, 2000, etc.) that when it comes to ratiocination, this joker runs wild.

Dollops of stodgy dialogue weigh down a perfectly implausible plot.