"I feel bad for gay men in America. They always get the shitty end of the stick." - Mike Stanley

Being funny and being a comedian is a completely different situation altogether. Anyone can be sarcastic and tell a zinger and make someone laugh, but it takes a special kind of skill to get up on stage and tell jokes and risk being booed off, or worse, not make anyone laugh. So even if you don't enjoy Mike Stanley's comedy you have to appreciate his willingness to go on stage and put himself in a vulnerable situation trying to make people laugh. You can sense the man is clearly struggling to just keep his head above water which in the end of the film pretty much declares that Mike is the every comedian, a man who is laughing on the outside but anxiously trying to just stay one step ahead of life on the inside. Though his friends have basically followed him around to make this documentary they never hide the fact that some of Stanley's sets don't get the laughs he wants. In the first two scenes we see of him on stage he's barely getting laughter and you can sense Stanley hesitating and struggling to hit that mark, and even Stanley himself holds no delusions about that fact as the crew constantly films him voicing his regrets. While documentaries about comedians aren't always interesting, thankfully director Andrew Zeiter sticks to the essential footage and makes the film work for the short format.

The particular aim at this film is to explore Stanley trying to get a step ahead by winning the Boston Comedy Festival, a contest he's particularly stressed about and hides it within his sharp one liners and easy going attitude. The movie has no room to pad its story, so it just follows Stanley around preparing for the next competition and grumbling about his latest problem, but as the film goes on it quickly transforms in to an underdog story as you root for Stanley to get through this one competition and go home with a sense of accomplishment. I won't spoil if he actually wins, but in the end director Zeiter sums up the average comedian by setting the camera down on Stanley who, with a slew of hilarious one-liners proclaims that win or lose, a comedian just has to take his licks with a joke and move on to the next show.

Personal and intimate all the way through, "Salty Language, Peppered Morals" is an interesting short documentary about the average comedian and the struggles it takes to just get ahead in the business. It's a film to really look out for.

• For more information on "Salty Language, Peppered Morals," visit the official website.