Review of John Leguizamo: Freak

I never saw any of John Leguizamo's stand-up before I watched Freak, and after seeing it again on HBO comedy recently it was better, more enlivening and with things that, at the age of 14, I couldn't understand quite before. Spike Lee did a wonderful job directing, keeping the visual angle up to par with Leguizamo's theatrics and the style of personal storytelling; it's substance and style merging together but unobtrusively. We get Leguizamo's rants about race and sex (the bits about sex are classic), but a lot of it is about family, and what sticks still fresh in my mind is about his father. Even when things get dark in some of the stories, there's something fresh or crazy or random that Leguizamo pulls out to get a laugh, and it works more often than not. If something does fall flat (for me at any rate) it might be his personality tics here and there. But overall, it's the kind of fun material that isn't heady, but is so true to itself that it stings. Find it if you can!