The Movie Funny People Sucked

So the #1 movie over the weekend was Funny People.  I was weary about going to see the movie.  The star of the movie is Adam Sandler.  Sandler is notoriously unfunny.  He’s up there with Carlos Mencia in terms of annoying, untalented comics that make obscene amounts of money.  I know, you think I’m hating.  But look at Sandler’s list of top grossing movies.  If you take his characters in all those films, what you’ll come up with is a compilation of characters that amount to nothing more than a person who tells a mix of fart, sex and knock knock jokes.  There’s no range there.

Anyway, I went to the theater hoping to see Public Enemies but apparently word about how God awful of a movie Funny People was had gotten out because Public Enemies was sold out.  I however, did not get that important memo.  So on Sunday I got a ticket for 8:20 pm to see Funny People.  Even though I knew of Adam Sandler’s massive lacking of talent, I figured it was still a Judd Apatow movie.  Apatow, the man who was a producer for such legendary comedic greatness as Talladega Nights, 40 Year Old Virgin, SuperBad and many other hilarious movies.  He even offset Sandler’s lack of humor by having Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill in the movie.  Sadly, the combined powers of both Rogen and Hill’s “Jewfros” couldn’t save this movie.

Funny People was like going into surgery to have your tonsils removed and waking up to having undergone a sex change.  I walked out of the movie theater almost 2 hours and 20 minutes later (more if you factor in trailers), dazed and confused as to the colossal feces stain I had just witnessed.  I feel as if I should sue for false advertisement.  The movie was more of a serious drama with intermittent funny portions.  Now to be fair, I kinda knew that this movie would have serious side.  But this movie was promoted as if it was going to be more comedy than drama.  It just made no sense to put this many comedians into one movie and then make the storyline more of a drama.  No matter how hard they try to be serious, it won’t work.  Its like taking a group of NFL players, putting ice skates on them and expecting them to gracefully perform a triple axel.  There were multiple scenes in Funny People that weren’t meant to be funny, but due to the fact that you have comedians trying to be serious around other comedians, their demeanor alone was enough to overshadow the seriousness.  Add in the fact that the movie makes it a habit to go from being a funny scene to down right depressing with no segue, no warning…its just too confusing.

Then there was the length of the movie.  Two hours and twenty minutes is a lifetime for a movie like this.  It was like watching Adam Sandler die a horrible, slow death in HD.  About an hour in I was shifting around in my seat ready to leave.  It’s as if they ran out of money or the editors just went on strike.  I don’t see how the DVD can have any extra bonus scenes because they made a point and throwing everything up on the big screen.  I’m actually trying to figure out how they spent $75 million to make this film.  There are basically 4 locations in this movie:  The Improv, George Simmon’s house, Ira’s apartment and Laura & Clarke’s house in San Francisco.  Add in 5 minutes in an airport and 5 minutes in a doctor’s office and you’ve got the whole movie.  So if the money didn’t go to editors and it didn’t go to locations, what the fuck did it go to?  The answer can probably be found in a 10 minute scene about halfway through the movie when Simmons finds out he’s not sick anymore.  That’s where Aptow decided to put just about every big name star or comedian he could find in the movie in a bar scene playing themselves.  I’m talking Andy Dick, Sarah Silverman, Ray Romano, Dave Attell, even Eminem (and there are many more).  Hell, Eminem was literally himself in this movie.  He was Marshall Mathers (which I’m sure cost extra) and honestly, his 2 minute scene where he goes off on Ray Romano is probably the best part of the movie.  The money they paid those stars might explain where that $75 million went and why they couldn’t afford editors.

But it’s the last half of the movie that really solidifies this movie as a piece of crap.  Nothing shows the schizophrenia of this movie than the scenes with Simmons and Laura.  Simmons goes to the house with Laura while Clarke is away and spends time with her and her kids.  He plays with them like they are his own.  He even lets them put peanut butter on his face and let the dog lick it off (must be a white thing).  So after all that, while watching Laura’s older daughter perform a song from Katz, Simmons is disinterested, even checking his text messages about some movie deal, and then laughs and calls the performance horrible.  Where the fuck did that come from?  Part of me tries to reconcile that by saying they cut out the part where Simmons realizes he can’t take the kids from their father and destroy a family.  But then I wonder a couple of things:

1.  Why edit that part out when they haven’t edited shit before (by that point the movie is already over 2 hours long)

2.  After that Simmons still acts like he wants to start something with Laura.  There’s no real self-realization from him until the very end of the movie (I’m talking 1 minute before the credits roll)

Seriously, save your money.  This movie was horrible because it squandered all the potential it could have had.  Adam Sandler has a hard time displaying range in a regular comedy film…and Aptow puts him in a drama?  That’s like putting Halle Berry in an action film.  People should stick to what they are good at.  If you make funny moives, make funny movies.  Stick to what you know.