You won't be disappointed!

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Jo Jo Dancer (Richard Pryor) is a successful comedian. In a drunken haze, he severely burns himself. His spirit watches his wounded body in his hospital bed and recalls his journey to that point. As a child, Jo Jo grew up in the brothel with his mother. As a young man, he decides to go to the big city Cleveland to try his hand in stand up. His father beats him up and his young wife is too afraid to go with him. He gets a gig at a strip club. As his career rises, his marriages suffer a roller-coaster ride of drug use and other difficulties.This is a thinly-veiled personal docudrama. I think it's probably a mistake for Pryor to direct the movie himself. It's technically competent but the material is there for something much more compelling. The story never gets much tension. It's coated in a functional lifetime docudrama. An experienced director would be able to bring something more interesting in the structure and also a deeper performance from Pryor. I love Pryor as a comic and an actor. I don't love this movie quite as much.

I hadn't thought about this movie for some time. I was in this movie. I was a King County deputy (outside Seattle) at the time working off duty for set security on this movie and was invited to be in it. I am one of the two cops (the one with all the hair) at the end of the movie confronting Richard Pryor. It was very interesting being involved in this movie. I got to meet Cycely and Richard Pryor and actually small talk for a bit with them between scenes. As far as the movie itself - I enjoyed it. It is funny and actually touching in parts. There were parts of this movie that were redone at a later date to "soften" it up some for the new improved Pryor (after his accident). The kids in this movie were great and some of them were actually disabled to some degree. Yes, I agree it would be interesting to see how some of the kids are doing now..24 yrs later. By the way, I don't have all the hair anymore. It is interesting to watch a movie filmed in your home area. Watch this movie...it is worth it. Sherlock

...this movie resonates all the more of the difficult life he lived and the humor that somehow came out of it.Pryor begins life as the son of a Prostitute, later turns his hyper energy into Theatre (thanks to a school teacher who he later gave his 1st Emmey to), turns to drug and alcohol addiction, is savagely burned during a bad freebase accident, is diagnosed with MS, is forced to spend his life in a wheelchair and throughout goes through many divorces. And the man is funny - what a genius (campare to Beethoven's life). Props to Richard Pryor for sharing his life and also for being the 1st African-American comedian to take on 'race' and actually making it work.Pryor was the Man!

Thin, sketchy story; interesting and well enough done but, like all these life history films, too little in too small a space. Dancer aged twenty years in about fifteen minutes of stage routines, then he went through three wives in around sixty minutes. If one wants to know about Pryor, reading his bio would be a wiser choice.