Funny People – 2009
Director: Judd Apatow
Cast: Adam Sandlar, Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana
Rating: 
One notable icon of Judd Apatow’s that gets you in your boots to go see one of his flicks is the self-explanatory, straight-forward, and plot-y titles… having that tip in hand, tells you that Funny People is actually gonna be funny… well it does have funny people… but the movie is not…
It’s a given that Apatow has flooded our beloved industry with shallow petty comedies that everybody enjoys to see once in a while… he has grown popular with that writing style so people started becoming fans of such silly escapes. But now he is in for a change, Apatow wants to get more serious using familiar faces to him and us. Shielding himself with a genre he masters and faces that make us laugh now and then, he decides to dig deep into drama-land and shift to a less likely path that he simply didn’t now how to navigate; wrong turn Apatow.. I must say!
The movie starts with an actual one of many pranks from the time where the director and his lead actor used to be roommates; sounds funny, but will it get any funnier? Hold on to your popcorn for the next 2½ hrs, because that’s gonna be your only delight! And if you hold enough you might get through some funny scenes at the ending credits… I wont grant you giggles… but I am sure of this one; one sunny afternoon will go right into the trash bag.
I understand the urge for change, but wasn’t it obvious that creativity failed our crime suspect given some vital proofs that our lead have featured when fatherhood had its say in Big Daddy and control freaks got their message through Click… those had substance, but this movie didn’t.
The movie features the struggle of an aspirant standup comedian and the demons of an already famous one… but neither the dialogue nor the actors managed to set us in the right mood… leading to definite speculations: was it gratitude to a mentor or a favor to an old roommate that led Rogen and Sandler to be part of a flick that reflects nothing but the director’s personal dairies and cast… yes! boarding his family members, wife and kids, has become a signature of his.
Meaningful light movies with a comic touch wowed watchers all over years; from Truman Show to American Beauty… so handouts and instructions where subliminally thrown at the director’s laps, unless he was trying to come up with a new genre: Drivel-Dramedy!
Judd Apatow had his heart poured in this movie with a creative set of teasers and previews to build up the right mindset from real standup comedy shows to documentaries… lots of ideas scattered on the ground deviating the real message which still remains vague…
153 mins of gratuitous lessons… unlearnt… a major skip.
3 responses so far
Harsh! It was humane, I thought, to highlight the drama in the lives of people whose livelihood depends on them being “funny”, and to show how “unfunny” the process could sometimes get. The story could’ve been told better, but I didn’t think it was that bad, at least not a complete waste of time. Anyway…
unnecessary lengthy and very slow. The idea is nice but execution isn’t there really.
The movie was not that bad, but it could have been better.
I agree with both Kamikaze and Mazen, it’s not a waste of time yet the movie could have been shorter and less boring.
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