Lenny (1974)

This is a superb, interesting film portraying the controversial and troubled life of randy comic Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman, brilliant). It takes him from a struggling comic to him ruining himself with all his arrests due to profanity and his dissent into drugs and lethal overdose. While he starts out relatively mundane, his act quickly turns dirty but hilarious after he meets and, in short order, marries Honey (Valerie Perrine) a stripper. He also brings attention to current events and tries to call out how stupid racism is (though he uses the 'n' word to do so, something that would not fly these days). However, because of his use of profanities, he's arrested which creates some interesting scenes in the courtroom, including some that are just downright bizarre. 

However, this film is also unique in the fact that it mixes recordings of the people surrounding Lenny's life as the police try to solve his sudden death, just before he was about to report to prison and the film is done in nearly a documentary style, realistic to a fault, with some great editing (which was denied an Oscar nomination) in gritty black and white but you don't miss a beat (though the DVD didn't include subtitles which is just a crime) and while the ending is painfully sad, this film manages to tell Lenny's story portraying him as a flawed man, and Lenny wouldn't have had it any other way. Grade: A-

Side Notes:

-Dustin Hoffman is completely brilliant but props to the unknown Valerie Perrine as his wife, that phone call between the two is a scene of pure emotional acting as those you were watching the actual scene between a heart-broken and devastated Lenny and Honey, who is likewise heart-broken and going through withdrawal.

-The supporting cast is also full of unknowns which only adds to the documentary feel of the film. 

-Lenny must have been left-handed as Hoffman uses his left hand to write something down in one of the courtroom scenes. 

-Also Clarence Thomas makes a cameo appearance as one of Lenny's lawyer.