Lenny Freeman is a straight-laced old-school accountant with a dream; to become a famous stand-up comedian. The problem is, Lenny is not very funny. Not even close. When his mother dies, leaving him nothing but debt and her '53 Oldsmobile, Lenny hits the road to chase his dream and head to Vegas to audition for Monte Guy's annual 'Stand-Up Stand-Off'. Along the way (and against his better judgment) Lenny picks up a mysterious traveler named 'Hitch' and his trip quickly turns from bad to worse. When they stop at a small desert town, Lenny tries his act out at an open-mic, but a run-in with a heckler quickly leads to murder. Now with a dead body in his trunk, Lenny and Hitch are on the run. The body count soon piles up and Lenny tries to free himself from his psychotic sidekick and escape to Vegas with the girl of his dreams. But Hitch won't shake so easily. They've got a contract. And the devil is in the details...literally. Not to mention the fact that all this blood and mayhem is having a strange side-effect on Lenny. It is actually improving his comedy! As the saying goes - it's only funny until someone gets hurt.
In more careless hands, Middle Man's deranged farce could have resulted in an unchecked, undisciplined movie with nothing to say. But beneath the roller-coaster madness here is an earthbound terror that art is meant to reveal.
