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Matt Rife: Natural Selection (2023)

Matt Rife: Natural Selection (2023)

A mean-spirited stand-up special with more complaints than cutting jokes

4.4

Movie

United States of America
English
Comedy
2023
ERIK GRIFFIN
Matt Rife
64 min

TLDR

The fact that we don't get a single audience cutaway during this whole set probably isn't a good sign.

What it's about

The young comedian talks about his love for old people, his fear of ghosts, and his disdain for all the people who irk him.

The take

Whether you enjoy it or not, edgy, offensive comedy has become a legitimate style of its own—which means there's a way to get it right. Matt Rife has confidence and a decent range of tricks to keep his routines dynamic, but far too much of this set is spent simply pointing out different things and people who piss him off, for reasons that he doesn't articulate very well. Insults can be funny if they're cleverly written enough but Rife only ever sounds like he's trying to prove himself to his haters, not through his own creativity but by bragging that he has a Netflix special now. Even for comedians who like to punch down, you have to have some humility; anything less is just a drunken rant.

What stands out

It's no coincidence that the one joke in Rife's routine that actually works very well is one where he positions himself as the more naive person with less power: an extended section where he narrates getting busted by his stepfather for stealing one of the pornographic tapes hidden in his room. It doesn't really have a point to make, but Rife proves here that he has storytelling ability and knows how to build anticipation. If more of this special was willing to make Rife look like the silly one—instead of insisting on portraying him as the cocky pretty boy—this might've been worth a second viewing.

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