Death at a Funeral

THIS MAY BE THE ONLY EXCITING FUNERAL YOU'LL EVER SEE. My Rating: *** 1/2 - Good

With a cast as loaded as the new film "Grown Ups", you can obviously tell this movie is somethin' else. Depending on what kind of moviegoer you are, that can be for better or for worse. But instead of sounding like I'm taking vows at a wedding, I want to tell you about a movie concerning a hilarious FUNERAL. The plot deals with a grief-stricken(or at least most of them) family dealing with the death of a beloved husband and father. But, he was part of a pretty large family and a large group of mourners have gathered to attend what they THINK will be an ordinary funeral. But, that idea quickly goes out the window as shocking revelations, jealousy, tension, blackmail, severe drugs, and just sheer mayhem all show up at the same time and that time happens to be a very bad time. Now as you can see, this is a PERFECT setup for a comedy. So my compliments to zee writers. Not only that, but like I said before, they also have a PERFECT cast. Many of the actors are also pretty much comedians. These would include Chris Rock(above,left, "Madagascar"), Martin Lawrence(above,right, "Big Mama's House"), and Tracy Morgan ("G-Force"). Other stars include James Marsden( the "X-Men" series), Zoe Saldana (" Avatar", "Star Trek", and "The Losers"), Peter Dinklage( above, tied-up, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian"), Danny Glover("Barnyard"), and Luke Wilson("Old School"). Phew! Now that I actually got finished going through the cast, I must say that their performances are very well done. All of them are believable and engrossing. That's just what a comedy needs. A good comedy also requires a good plot. Now some people might say "how does this have a good plot if it's a comedy taking place at a funeral"? Well, if you think about it, it's a comedy taking place in one of the most, well, "unfunny" places. And that really just makes it even funnier. Here's an example: The film "Blazing Saddles"(1974) is a comedy taking place in the violent old west of the 1800's. But somehow, the writing found a clever way to use the setting to it's advantage and make it even funnier. There was a lot of racism back then and especially in an old western town out in the middle of nowhere. And so the writers made it about a black guy that becomes the sheriff of that town. That's just one thing though. The writers of THIS film had several things similar to that. One example of this is (***WARNING: SEMI-SPOILER ALERT***) when Uncle Russell(Danny Glover) eats too much cake and gets diarrhea. Uncle Russell is an old man AND confined to a wheelchair. So Norman(Tracy Morgan) must help him get to the toilet. While setting Uncle Russell on the seat, his hand gets stuck under him and Uncle Russell just starts going and once Norman gets it out, it's covered in waste. Then, he tries to wash it off but it sprays it all over the place and just gets a HUGE spot on the mirror and gets it all over his face. Now don't tell me that isn't even remotely funny. This is a comedy that does, well, actually have some true comedy in it. It's not like those vulgar comedies that might as well have a sign on the cover saying "WARNING: MUST SET ASIDE MATURITY TO BE ENTERTAINED". But, the only problem is that that was one of the only parts I really laughed my pants off. My image of an ideal comedy is one that's both interesting and keeps me laughing the whole way through. I started out really liking "Death at a Funeral" and I was waiting for some hysterical mayhem. But when nothing like that happened, I just sat back and enjoyed an interesting film. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of funny parts but not much reaching the hilarity of "Dumb & Dumber". But, the work of the writing was fantastic which you can see through it's plot. Although the plot has many things happening parallel to each other, it is very well planned and thought out and even just the set-up just makes you laugh. As you progress through the film, you can see these "parallel" lines start to curve towards each other. And I know that's better than anything I could've come up with. But all in all, great acting, the story is very interesting and engrossing, and I think most of you will actually be happy after watching this one SAD family.

Starring: Director: Neil LeBute
Chris Rock
Martin Lawrence
Zoe Saldana
Danny Glover
James Marsden
Loretta Divine
Tracy Morgan
Columbus Short
Peter Dinklage
Ron Glass
Luke Wilson