Comedy on the edge

Mickey Rooney, "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

The melancholy pleasure of watching the romantic struggles between Audrey Hepburn’s party girl and George Peppard’s writer is intermittently interrupted by abrasive appearances from Rooney as Hepburn’s easily agitated Japanese neighbor. Fitted with buck teeth, his eyes prosthetically pulled into slits, Rooney puts forth a broad Asian stereotype.

Does he go too far?: Rooney’s performance is as insulting for spoiling an otherwise tasteful adult entertainment as it is for more immediately apparent offensiveness.