Summary
Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs is a mixed bag of goods that doesn’t land perfectly, but you won’t regret watching.
This review of the Netflix film Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs does not contain spoilers.
Shane Gillis broke into the stand-up comedy world in 2012, performing in Harrisburg, PA. A few short years later, he started to guest on The Bonfire podcast, leading to increased visibility that landed on the Comedy Central “Up Next” list upon performing at Comedy Central’s Clusterfest. In his second live comedy special, he makes his debut on Netflix with Beautiful Dogs.
Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs review and plot summary
Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs sees Gillis tell jokes about touring George Washington’s house, being bullied by Australian Goth, and of course, dogs.
Gillis hits the stage with a joke about visiting Australia and criticizing them for being inferior to the USA. However, they would fire back at him, saying, “At least we don’t have mass shootings,” and he would return fire with, “At least we aren’t gay.”
For what will be many people’s introduction to Gillis, the opening wasn’t as strong as you would want it to be, but decent enough to want to see what else he had in store.
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Gillis struggles to overcome a somewhat lackluster start in the first twenty minutes of this special. He has this odd delivery that does take time to get used to, but his stage presence is somewhat exhausting. At times it almost felt like he messed up his punchlines or didn’t have the joke fully fleshed out. Either way, it was a struggle at times to watch.
My favorite bit of the entire special was about his visit to Mount Vernon and George Washington’s house. This is where Gillis thrived with his storytelling that had perfectly timed punchlines throughout the almost ten-minute bit. As I said, Gillis struggled to navigate some of the jokes early on, but he almost felt more confident in this joke than the rest. In his next special, I would love to see that confidence more from him because this was comedy gold.
Gillis doesn’t get overly political in the special, but he does have a hilarious bit about Trump and the urge to want him to debate. He also showed off his spot-on Trump impression, which is brilliant.
Is Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs good or bad?
Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs is far from the worst stand-up comedy special (Andrew Santino: Cheeseburger has that crown) you will watch this year.
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That said, you have to suffer through about twenty to twenty-five minutes to get to the goods. When Gillis finds his mojo, the special gets good, and those last twenty minutes make this special worthwhile.
Is Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs worth watching?
Fans of Shane Gillis knew what to expect when he hit the stage for Beautiful Dogs, but this goes south for those who don’t know who he is. I don’t think he will be winning over any new converts with this special.
Although the last 20 minutes save this from being a complete disaster, I am not sure many people will stick around long enough to find these jokes.
What did you think of Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs? Comment below.
You can watch this film with a subscription to Netflix.
