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Bill Hicks had built up a large and very loving fan base in his adopted home of the UK before his sad and early departure. One of life's many contradictions is that the country that spawned a genius also spurned him, most notably David Letterman scrapping his final (of many) appearances on the late show. Bill felt it was a mere biological coincidence (listen to his routines) that he happened to be a Texan, and this comedian and social commentator belonged to the whole world rather than just two countries on either side of the Atlantic. He belonged to the whole world in my opinion because he had such a relevant and timeless message, that fuelled every polemic routine. I've been a fan of Hicks since I was 18 years old, making many of the discoveries this guy had made at the same age. For anyone who regards themselves alive enough to cherish self awareness and to contemplate questions such as why do the good guys die and the twisted little men thrive in their place, tune into Hicks (not Fox News). Fitting given his fan base that this documentary was made with love by two British directors. As I said, I consider myself a huge fan, but this film shed light on an already big star, especially his formative years and relationships with his friends and family. 'American' is a journey, a ride, and one you'll be very glad you came along on.

I am an enormous Bill Hicks fan. Obsessively so. I think I have all the bootlegged concerts on my computer, and a DVD of rariety camcorder shows as well as enough official CDs and DVDs that I have basically all his material available in one form or another. I also have about three books - two biographies and a book of transcripts and scripts and other writings. So that's the background I took into this documentary.

First of all, it's a beautiful film to look at. There's the usual audio history going on in the background, but what the directors have done is taken still photographs and created pseudo-animated sequences to support the narrative. It's odd at first, but very quickly you stop even noticing that the still faces aren't moving in their animated environment. Very clever.

Secondly, where has all this new footage come from? There are several camcorder recordings which must go back as far as the early 1980s that I have never seen before. There's some bits (about his father) which I'd never heard before which were used to accompany the section on his early shows. I don't think they are quite as old as that (he looks a bit older than 16) but it's not far off. Some of these early clips also show later material in an earlier form - like the fantasy about the grotesque death of woman that broke his heart seeing him on the Tonight Show as she breathed her last.

The best thing about the film, however, is they way everything is brought back to the comedy. With enough reading, you'd already know about the drug stories and the depths of his alcohol abuse and his tragic early death from pancreatic cancer. While all of these are important parts of the story, no-one dwells on the more sensational details, but instead uses them in partnership with recordings to show how they motivated what he was doing on stage. There's clips to show him drinking excessively on stage, clips about his growing dislike of governments (including from Hicks and Kevin Booth's trip to Waco in 1993), clips contrasting his rapturous reception in the UK (the huge rock and roll entrance of the Revelations show at the Dominion theatre) adjacent to the small audiences ("staring blankly back at me like a dog that had been shown a card trick") of a backwater comedy club in the US South. I like this because it feels like the best use of the documentary medium, and gives fresh insight into a topic I (and many other fans) already know well. I mean, I can read and re-read an autobiography of his life but only in a film can I really see the effect on his work. Very much recommended, for disciples and neophytes alike.

I was able to see this on my local cable provider's VOD. I half expected this to be part biography and part collection of comedy routines. It was heavier on the biography part and not as much a retrospective of performance bits. That was perfectly fine because this documentary was more about the man and what drove his comedy. Also, it appears Bill Hicks was an incredible blues guitarist from the few audio clips played. Most of the beginning is about his family and upbringing which sourced his early comedy. It also described his friendships and the relationships that led him into comedy. Towards the end, more of Bill Hick's comedy is performed, but more to emphasize the circumstances of his life and how he managed his career.

Bill Hicks will always be one of my favorite comedians, and to see the man behind the comedy was fascinating. I have a deeper appreciation of the man and his work after seeing this film.

Namaste, Venakam, Salaam Alaikum, Sat Sri Akal.

Bill Hicks' comedy has been a godsend in my personal life. Being a native of the Balkan region of former Yugoslavia trying to acclimate to American society without acculturating and losing my identity, his work was invaluable. He has said the things that most people don't even acknowledge or think about.

Bill hicks was an amazing artist and human being on many levels. In particular, on a spiritual and philosophical level, he is easily the most relevant and profound comedian of all time. No other individual has managed to take the unpalatable truths of "modern society" and deliver them with the intellectual poise, sincerity and utter hilarity of Bill Hicks.

He is in our hearts and minds for all eternity, and its a joy to have known his eternal individual nature through his recordings.

May we meet again in the cosmic energy pool of eternity.

Peace, Love & Light,

Almir

"It's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one."

• William Melvin "Bill" Hicks

This documentary is very in depth but it's focus on still photography/animation left me wanting more. The story of Bill's life is definitely covered very thoroughly but I almost felt like this could have been an audio book. I enjoyed it but would have liked to (visually) see more interviews, Bill's comic sets and video of real life people that would get you to know Bill.

I just felt it could have been done better but you do get to know "the guy". IMDb requires ten lines of text for a review so I will have to fluff this review with garbage in order to have this review be approved. Are we there yet?

To the people in the know, Bill Hicks is revered as one of the greats. I must admit I wasn't all that familiar with his work before seeing this documentary. I may have seen the odd snippet here and there, maybe even caught part of the odd TV appearance when getting back late from the pub, but this is the first time I've actually sat down and watched any his work properly. You'll be pleased to know you've got a convert right here! I can see why he was so successful over here in the UK; his style of humour is just the kind of thing we love. But I digress, here's a bit about the film.

We are told the story of Bill Hicks right from birth until his death, tragically young, only 32 years later. It's quite fascinating how he started out as a teenager with his friend Dwight Slade, and how they'd sneak out of the house to go and play gigs at a local comedy club. He gains some success and ends up solo when Dwight has to move away and we follow his career through alcoholism, drug abuse and back again. It's only when he cleaned up that he had his greatest successes though. Sadly he never really made it really big in his home country during his lifetime, but he left us with some truly memorable and thought-provoking comedy… In my book, a genius.

Rather than just having lots of talking heads in between scenes of Bill on stage, the filmmakers used some photo-animation to illustrate certain parts of the story. This worked very well and served to keep the audience interested in the narrative. Many of his friends and family contribute to the story, which gives this version of events a lot of credence. I found I was not only intrigued by his life story, but also by his comedy. I will certainly be looking at more of the work of Bill Hicks… Recommended.

My Score: 8.2/10.

IMDb Score: 7.9/10 (based on 1,716 votes at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 82/100 (based on 55 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Bill Hicks did not live an extraordinary life. Born into a middle-class suburban home with doting parents and overachieving siblings, the teen found his calling in furnishing extraordinary insights into the ordinary life that he, and most other Americans in the 70s and 80s, led. Getting his start as a teen comic in a local Texan comedy club, he was the young upstart coming at issues from a fresh angle, the ease and confidence with which he delivers his jokes distinguishing him as a special talent.

Dropping out of school and chasing the dream in LA, Hicks struggles with failure and fitting in with what the world expects of his humour. Falling into patterns of drug abuse and alcoholism, his comedy mirrored an outlook on life that was not mainstream. He was cynical, he was rash and he was jarring, and for all those reasons, he was an acquired taste. His anti-American routines particularly did not bode well for his career; in an industry where shock is now the norm, Hicks was ahead of his time, but that was to prove little consolation.

Eventually, ousting himself from the cycle of rejection and abuse, Hicks winds up in New York where he gets himself clean and his magical touch returns. Though he never sacrifices his right to say and joke about whatever he wishes (and highlights from various gigs are used as proof of this), in doing so he pushes back against the mainstream tide that flirts with but never embraces him. Diagnosed with cancer in his early 30s, Hicks never receives the true acceptance of the American audience that he perhaps craved, but he died in the knowledge that he stuck to certain values that never let him compromise what he believed in to merely give audiences what they wanted to hear. Many would argue that, in itself, that is a very American value.

Harlock and Thomas' film joins the growing collection of posthumous albums and features that have attempted to reclaim Hicks' image, to wonderful effect. Whether it is guilt for ignoring him whilst alive, America has finally embraced the humour of a man whose only really fame was an ocean away in the United Kingdom. As only a proud American could care enough to write the jokes about the fatherland that Hicks managed, his emotional emigration to the British Isles is as tragic personally as it was a highlight professionally.

If the documentary has a flaw, it is that Hicks wasn't around to truly finish it. This is a half-finished documentary because it was a half-finished life.

Concluding Thought: As a resident of the UK, the portrayal of Hick's success in the British Isles being down to his anti-Americanism is somewhat simplistic. The UK has a wonderful tradition of supporting comedians regardless of background or content, purely because they make them laugh.

More than leading an interesting life, Bill Hicks - one of the most significant American comedians in recent times - was an interesting soul with an important voice. This is what, after a somewhat slow start, Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas' biomentary American: The Bill Hicks Story is able to convey. The filmmakers use a combination of creative and agreeable photo-animations and traditionally voiced interviews with Hicks' friends and family to tell his story, and the film captures some of the comedian's struggles, a little bit of his agenda, and a fair amount of his sense of humour. Hicks is portrayed, as dead artists often are, as something of a martyr, which is fitting enough, but the filmmakers make the deadly sin for documentarians of not treating their subject material with any form of criticism. This is a fan piece, and will work just as that.

If the film inspired you to check out more of Hicks' material, I think the filmmakers will feel that they've done their jobs. In that case, I suggest Totally Bill Hicks, which includes his last performance in England.

It seems like the other reviewers are giving this documentary high marks because it is about a comedian they love. That is a mistake. This is a poor documentary. This documentary consists of friends of Bill's talking about him while we look at old pictures scrolling across the screen. This is occasionally interrupted by 5-10 seconds of actual video of Bill or one of his cohorts.

To me, this fails as a documentary, it is purely a fan piece. If you love Bill Hicks now, then this will make you love him more. If you are not a fan, then this will make you avoid his work as much as possible. From what I know, Bill was a very thoughtful and talented person, it's too bad someone as thoughtful as him didn't make the film about him.

Watching recordings of Hicks, I am impressed at how his stand up shifts from vulgar bathroom humor to such profound social commentary. He truly was unique and ahead of his time. I guess it figures then his life was taken at such an early age. That seems to be the pattern we see in history with great thinkers (Ghandi, Jesus, etc). When I hear him speak, I caught myself saying, "He should've been president!" Instead he was regulated to doing comedy in two-bit clubs in the redneck south. Also of not is the wonderful picture-animation technique, which I have not personally seen before. It helped to fill in the gaps left by not having the titular character being present for an interview.

See it and learn something.

Your father didn't die for a flag. He died for the symbol that the flag represented, which is the freedom to burn the flag. -Hicks

Beautiful tribute to the great Bill Hicks. Anyone who loves him should watch this BBC production!

Hearing his family remember him brought tears to my eyes. His friends made me wish I knew him.

Rest In Peace, you will be remembered until the world destroys itself <3.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Coming from a country famous for making an institution out of stand up comedy, for many an insincere route to bigger things, Bill Hicks is certainly a name that stands out in many 'best jokes ever' polls over here, despite being, interestingly, American, where people are known to be a little more sensitive. And, it would seem he got his big break over here, his true talent and potential not being explored in his native country enough, where he either caused too much offence or was simply a misunderstood genius. Basically, the guy has a massive cult following that has continued many years after his death and this documentary attempts to cast light on his life and times, without reflecting too much on the influence he still has today.

Hicks didn't seem to let how much he was far away from where he went to become famous stand in his way at all, chasing his small town boy dream with all the confidence and gusto of a tornado, a character possessed by a dynamic mind that refused to be restrained who, like the best of anyone, ended up living fast and dying young. People are appreciated more in death, for sure, but it's undeniably often the case that people with an unquestionable talent in whatever medium they are in can be taken away in their prime, and it's definitely sad to see all that potential and talent taken away.

This is a sincere, honest, insightful, revealing and well made enough expose of Hicks, opening up his unique observations and comedy stylings to a new generation of viewers. ***

*...Who knows?.. I'm sure he would appreciate the fact that it is, at least, the truth.

If anyone has not yet experienced any of Mr. Hick's incredibly funny, artistic and sometimes groundbreaking performances, expressing his ideas, opinions and beliefs through the medium of Stand Up comedy then (unless you are from another planet...) I would have to ask; "where have you been and what exactly have you been doing with your life??.."

Although this was pretty well made and mostly interesting it is more a homage by his family and closest friends about his upbringing and his life from their point of view, not a detailed dissection of all his work and media appearances. It is also, perhaps, just a final gesture to the many fans to maybe set the record straight on a couple of minor details and to publicize his life again for a new generation of fans... Which, in an age of misinformation, illegal wars and rapid global change is, I think personally, very very important.

It fails miserably however to really express just how great this man is and why he is revered by many as a genius and by most, not least his peers, as one of 'the' (sadly)rare and truly important artists in the relatively short history of the form. To be this is really a companion piece to the live recordings and the various other media floating around in the virtual ether.

I gave it 8 out of ten just for the possibility that it will encourage some new fans to watch his stand up, learn about him and hopefully, more about the world around them in a humorous way.

To me he still is a truly genuine human being in a world full of fake, fallacy and fear.

An inspiration to anyone who believes in logic, reason, individuality, equality, the freedom to choose and that love is about the human race as one.

Enjoy... :)

If you're looking for material about Bill Hicks, this is a place to start. If you're acquainted with his work, this might be your collector's album about his life. None of the background has been omitted: the highs and the lows supported by lots of previously unreleased footage.

The interviews with Bill's family revealed how much love and affection he received from them. In my opinion, this environment along with his talent and experience led him to become one of the best stand-up comedians of all times.

I found it great how this movie has been made as a mixture of archive footage and simple animation with voice-over of the interviewees. However, i felt that his approach might turn-off the average viewer, as well.

Photo-animated feature documentary, uniquely narrated by the 10 people who knew Bill best.

I never liked Bill Hicks. There's a reason he was much bigger in the UK. His humor doesn't work here. And the people overseas somehow thinks he's a snapshot of American joke telling. He wasn't. He reminded me a bit of Sam Kinison who was way funnier and much more on the edge.

This docu-movie is way boring. The subject matter is not a genius but we are forced to sit through so much talkie dialog about how special he was. Who cares? He didn't make a difference in life. Few people even know who he is.

The definition of greatness is someone who stands the test of time. Pryor, Carlin. These people will be remembered. Bill Hicks will not. What's his name again?

"American: The Bill Hicks Story" is the remarkable opportunity to delve into the brilliant mind of one of the most iconoclastic and visionary comedians of our time. Directed by Paul Thomas and Matt Harlock, this documentary goes beyond recounting the life of Bill Hicks; it delves into the soul of a man who challenged conventions and used the stage to expose uncomfortable truths and provoke profound thoughts. The documentary is a fascinating collage of interviews, animations, and archival footage that paint a vivid and personal portrait of Hicks. What makes "American: The Bill Hicks Story" particularly engaging is its innovative use of animation. Photographs of Hicks and his friends and family are animated, creating an almost dreamlike effect that allows the viewer to step directly into the comedian's life and thoughts. This technique not only makes the storytelling more dynamic but also manages to capture the essence of Hicks' inner world - a world of deep reflections, sharp humor, and a constant quest for truth. The strength of the documentary also lies in the testimonies of those who knew Hicks best. The accounts from his friends, family, and fellow comedians offer an intimate insight into his character, struggles, and extraordinary talent. We discover a complex man marked by a profound awareness of the world's injustices and an unquenchable thirst for truth. Hicks was not just a comedian; he was a modern philosopher, a prophet who used the stage to illuminate society's darkness. One of the most poignant parts of the film is the recounting of Hicks' battle with pancreatic cancer, which took him away at just 32 years old. Despite the illness, Hicks continued to perform, demonstrating incredible strength and determination. His final performances, infused with a keen awareness of his own mortality, are a testament to his greatness as an artist and as a man. The music in the documentary plays a fundamental role in creating the right atmosphere. The musical choices, ranging from psychedelic rock to melancholic ballads, perfectly reflect Hicks' rebellious spirit and tormented soul. The soundtrack is not just an accompaniment but an integral part of the narrative that amplifies the emotions and reflections evoked by the images and words. If I were to evaluate "American: The Bill Hicks Story," I would not hesitate to give it top marks. Not only for the technical quality of the documentary but for its ability to capture the essence of Bill Hicks so deeply and authentically. It is a film that manages to be both educational and touching, amusing and heartbreaking. It reminds us of the importance of thinking critically, challenging conventions, and always seeking the truth, even when it's uncomfortable. "American: The Bill Hicks Story" is a necessary tribute to a man who left an indelible mark on the world of comedy and beyond. It is a celebration of his life and work, but also an invitation to reflect on the power of words and the role of the artist in society. Watching this documentary is like receiving a life lesson from a master who, despite his brief existence, lived more fully and authentically than many others. "American: The Bill Hicks Story" is a must-see for anyone who loves comedy, philosophy, and the pursuit of truth. It is a fascinating and moving journey into the life of an extraordinary man, a documentary that not only informs but deeply inspires. It is an invitation to know Bill Hicks not only as a comedian but as a thinker, rebel, and visionary.