He was reading it off a screen.

His speech completely missed the mark.

His jokes belonged in a late night monologue, not in an acceptance speech of a lifetime achievement award from a major awards ceremony. He should have included anecdotes of his experiences, commentary about his favorite piece of work, his advice to young actors, his thanks for his peers, etc. He should have reflected on his lifetime of work. Instead, he got someone to write him some jokes and embarrassed himself.

De Niro was not being racist at all. Why Would he? His close ancestors were immigrants themselves from italy, including his free spirited artist parents and he has a black wife. He is simply mocking America's present day attitude to immigration which is if you are mexican you are useless and should not be allowed in the country no matter how talented you are and should only be doing 'servant' jobs like waiters. Its satire and very clever. Gervais was on the same wavelength- his foreign film joke

and wake up Jerry God does not exist

its funny how people are attacking and disliking deniro for one joke even though his one of the best actors of all time and is actually a nice and good person. Why dont you guys attack gervais he was actually trying to be disrespectful with his attack on God and he has only done one thing which was the office and has never done anything good afterwards gervais is a joke he is not funny the only reason he had some funny jokes is because he had good writers backing him up. all of his movies sucked including the horrible invention of lying. I guess in hollywood its okay to attack others if your an atheist since most of hollywood and the media are atheists!

Deniro had a great speech and was really funny but Ricky Gervais was pathetic most of his funny jokes were not written by him at-least Deniro was joking when he said the hispanic joke but Gerviais was purposely trying to be offensive with his antichristian and antireligious comment at the end!

I love Annette Bening, but she needs to do something with her hairdo!!!
Nanci

De Niro- was better than most but Ricky is the bravest , the best and was soooo right on. Daring De Niro was so PC> Don't Americans just love that. De Niro's a greatactor but Gervais is the greatest saterist of all time.

De Niro-He's always amazing and fearless!

"Sharp & funny"? My first thought after his speech was he must have had Bruce Villanch write this for him.

DeNiro "has comic chops to spare"? Surely you jest! His acceptance speech was completely "off" and only uncomfortable to watch, not funny or even slightly amusing.

He was the bomb of the night, and not in a good sense of the word. He had to be ashamed of himself.