Hasan Minhaj: Off with His Head 2024 Movie Review
After embarking on his national comedy tour earlier this year, Hasan Minhaj took his show to Los Angeles, performing three consecutive shows at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre earlier this month. His third live comedy special, Hasan Minhaj: Off With his Head, tackles subject matter familiar to his fans, including life as a South Asian American and dealing with immigrant parents. The show, which locked away the use of smartphones and other devices to prevent audio and visual recording, was not only entertaining but fully demonstrated Minhaj’s comedic abilities within his outgoing stand-up persona.
The majority of the special was centered on Minhaj’s own personal reflections on being the middleman in a South Asian immigrant family. He addressed the struggles of deciding which traditional heirlooms (or ideologies) get left behind vs. carried forward as a part of his family’s legacy and culture, especially as a father of two young children himself. Minhaj further poked fun at the trauma his parents gave him, sharing the importance of separating his identity from his parents. He simultaneously appreciated the lessons they taught him about family and community over classic American individualism and the concept of “boundaries.”
Minhaj also briefly addressed other topics such as race relations (especially Asian-on-Asian racism), politics in America, Hunter Biden, and Bitcoin. He additionally touched on his own controversies, which came to light in September of 2023 in The New Yorker magazine when he was accused of fabricating his comedic stories.
However, Minhaj did not spend much time tackling his previous controversies in the special. He instead carried the show forward in his familiar, casual style using personal anecdotes, observations, and narrative experiences dealing with his family alongside other random characters in his life. His live stand-up special also included a good amount of crowd work, which allowed him to engage with his audience on a more personal level, even if that meant mocking them as well.
This being his third special, Minhaj is no stranger to the world of live comedy. The comedian first rose to prominence as a senior correspondent at the Daily Show starting in 2014. His first comedy special was released in 2017, titled Homecoming King. He then left The Daily Show in 2018 to host his own weekly comedy show titled The Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, which led to his first Emmy win and second Peabody award. His second comedy special, Hasan Minhaj: The King’s Jester, was released in 2022.
The style and content of this show were expected of him given his previous material and that is exactly what he delivered. The special was funny, familiar, but also accessible, even for those who may not relate to coming from an immigrant family living in America. While Minhaj may have not tackled a lot of fresh or unexpected material, the show was still solid in its delivery and overall a fun, lighthearted special to watch.
