For someone who had directed mostly (if not almost all) musicals throughout his career, and indeed made his name on Broadway before winning his Oscar for Cabaret (beating out Coppola for the Godfather no less), Bob Fosse was the last person I would figure directed a film about the iconoclast comedian Lenny Bruce. If I hadn't known it was him directing it, I would've thought someone from France had been given the controls on the script to make it into new. But 'Lenny' was indeed a Broadway play by Julian Barry, and here he makes it into something that works extremely well cinematically, and at the same time has that appeal of the theater, of that rush that comes from seeing someone like Fosse direct or Bruce on stage. It's a script that fiddles with the time-line of a man from mid-twenties to (tragic) death with interviews after the fact, and for anyone who knows the name and work of Lenny Bruce would do well to see this 'version' of his life.<br /><br />As usual, the contribution of Dustin Hoffman to the film's success is incalculable. I have seen some footage of Bruce doing his comedy act through the searing documentary Swear to tell the Truth, but even if you haven't seen any footage of Bruce's act (which I'm sure most who were born in my time have not) you can put total belief in Hoffman's portrayal. One of the tenets of Bruce's life and career was that he would be truthful to himself, or at least would have that urge to find the truth early on (during his pre-beat years of the 50's) and then full-blown in the late 50's and especially early 60's. Hoffman, therefore, is very astute in playing this role, how he could find that sense of total absurdity under all the BS, always questioning. And yet, he was also a likely a man with his share of flaws, and a good chunk of the film is about the relationship between him and Honey, his girlfriend-turned-wife. These scenes show Hoffman in a different key than he plays him in the stand-up scenes, and it's terrific.<br /><br />And also, going back to Fosse, the style is another big factor. The cutting is often startling, skipping along to that jazzy beat that is laid onto the soundtrack (I loved one scene where they show a early 50's party at a 'pad', records being played, grass being rolled, Bruce falling head over heels in a quiet way), and then with the comedy clips especially, we get the best and the worst of what Bruce had to offer, his peak in pointing out things with risqué abandon (and ended up getting him in ridiculous trouble), and downfall into drugs and depression. Every step of the way, it seems, Fosse is keeping up with Hoffman's vitality in this character of Bruce, and while the film provides some laughs, it also works as a serious treatise on what it means to try and have free speech in this country. But the message Bruce wanted to try and get through to the public and to the courts is not what one should focus on completely, and if the film did it would've been a weaker effort. It's strongest as it merges with a full-on character study, as Hoffman and the supporting players (the actress playing Honey Bruce is also very good) put on a certain image of a time and place. One of the best films of 1974.