''Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly'' is a 2000 American
stand-up comedy television film directed by
Stan Lathan
Stan Lathan (born July 8, 1945) is an American television and film director and television producer. He is executive producer and director of BET's ''Real Husbands of Hollywood''. He has produced and directed numerous stand-up comedy specials st ...
and written by and starring comedian
Dave Chappelle
David Khari Webber Chappelle ( ; born August 24, 1973) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He is best known for his satirical comedy sketch series ''Chappelle's Show'' (2003–2006), which he starred in until quitting in the middle of p ...
. Filmed at the
Lincoln Theatre in
Washington, D.C., it was Chappelle's first hour-long
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
special, premiering on HBO on July 26, 2000. In the special, Chappelle talks about a variety of topics, including racism,
police brutality
Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...
, and drug use.
Reception
Shortly after the special's release, Steve Johnson of the ''
Chicago Tribune'' gave it a positive review, writing that it "
overs
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Places
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**Over Bridge
*Over, Seevetal, Germany
Music
Albums
* ''Over'' (album), by Pete ...
the predictable
black people
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in s ...
versus
white people and men versus women territory, but doing it with fresh observations and, more important, a sophisticated structure", and noting: "somebody give this guy a TV series".
In 2015, ''Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly'' was ranked #6 on a ''
Rolling Stone'' list of the 25 best stand-up specials and films, with writer Matthew Love stating that the special "delivers everything we know now as the comedian's trademarks:
shaggy-dog tales with increasingly absurd details and quick reversals; loose-limbed and playful bits that even inspired the comedian to giggle fits; blistering commentary on race couched in seemingly offhanded storytelling. Weed-dealing three-year-olds and ''
Sesame Street'' pimps aside, the comic's routines about police brutality are even more painfully prescient today than they were in 2000."
Home media
''Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly'' was released on
DVD in 2003.
References
Further reading
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly
2000 films
2000 comedy films
HBO network specials
Stand-up comedy concert films
Films shot in Washington, D.C.
Films directed by Stan Lathan
Dave Chappelle