Comedian is a documentary that chronicles Jerry Seinfeld's rebirth as a stand-up. After pulling the plug on his brilliant sitcom at the height of its popularity, mostly to keep it from overstaying its welcome - Jerry also vowed to retire all his old stand-up material and build it all over again from scratch. This film, for the most part, is a journal of that process.

You have to admire Jerry for such a classy move, even though I could have used a few more years of George, Kramer and the gang, Seinfeld went out on top and turned his back on 1 million dollars per episode. Comedian is a sporadically entertaining documentary that tags along with Seinfeld as he struggles to put together new bits and routines. Stand-up comedy is designed to look like the best job in the world, though it's pretty common knowledge that it's one of the toughest professions to succeed at. Comedian endeavors to further illustrate what an agonizing, dog-eat-dog profession it really is.

As far as being and entertaining film Jerry is even loathe to offer us that much without making us work. What you aren't told going in to this film is that much of the running time is spent following around a relatively unknown comedian named Orny Adams. Orny, we learn, has been tirelessly pursuing his dream of comedy stardom for some time and on stage he's pretty amusing, but off-stage he's a whiny, abrasive, overbearing character with an acute absence of people-skills. He ignores the constructive criticism of the most knowledgeable practitioners in the business and obsesses over everything to the point of neuroses.

Though it is through this individual that Seinfeld chooses to illustrate the nature of the business, I probably would have enjoyed the film more had he chosen someone else. Then again, I think this was Jerry's point - even the guys who can make you laugh when they're on stage aren't always the most fun people to be around when their set is over.

The film, however, shines when we follow Seinfeld behind the scenes into the seedy comedy clubs of his early career, and there are alot of hilariously insightful banter between Jerry and his mate Colin Quinn. One keen observation belongs to Quinn when he sums up what Jerry is facing on stage with unproven bits - "You get a little bit of a break up front," he says. "Then you still gotta be funny."

And we see this as the hard truth as wild standing ovations, turn to cold silence when Jerry misses the mark. One particularly uncomfortable scene shows Seinfeld completely losing his train of thought in the middle of a bit. The audience is forgiving, until someone hollers, "Is this your first gig?" There are times when watching a Goliath fall is enjoyable, but when it's Jerry there is no fiendish pleasure to be enjoyed, watching him bomb you almost take personally.

Comedian is not the laugh-fest that the title would suggest, there are plenty of funny moments and a little too much Orny Adams to be sure, but the scenes where Jerry is having drinks and talking shop with some of the great comics of all time makes Comedian a fascinatingly voyeuristic journey