Film

Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert (2008)

Director: Michael Wolfe

Movie review

From Time Out Chicago

This stand-up concert film smartly shoves its subjects into the spotlight, empowering the three Muslim Americans to speak frankly about their lives through comedy. It sounds like such a simple concept—play to your strengths, people—but apparently others haven’t quite figured it out yet. Last year’s Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show was an embarrassment for the genre—the one that encompasses everything comedy, ever. Then there was the PBS doc Muslim American Stand-Ups Come of Age, which featured Allah’s Usman, and many others, sharing somewhat flat stories about the difficulty of breaking into the pigeonholey industry.

Allah is a more nuanced portrayal of who these people are—regular Americans forced to deal with shallow stereotypes. With only minimal interruption between sets, the film is rife with intelligent, brazen stand-up. Amer shares stories of growing up Palestinian; his mom would smear olive oil, believed to be a cure-all, all over his face. Moss admits no one understood what Ramadan signified other than fasting, only that the stocky comic “should Ramadan a lot.” Chicago’s Usman, though, is the highlight, presenting highbrow arguments about how Muslims and Jews have more in common than they know.

Stand-up with a point? How simple the sound.