Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

I gotta hand it to Judd Apatow for his newest movie ‘Funny People’. Adam Sandler on the strength of Moron Coms such as ‘Happy Gilmore’ and ‘Little Nicky’ has more money than most of the depressed states in our great nation but every once in a while Mr. Sandler likes to show he can act when pressed to do so. Thus we have fine films such as ‘Punch Drunk Love’ or ‘Reign Over Me’. Problem is his fans don’t go see him in those movies which is why we need the Zohan’s and Chuck and Larry’s of the world so Adam won’t go broke. But Mr. Apatow figured out a way to combine both Moron Com AND Drama in one nice sweet little package… mind you a long running package… I’m talking a movie so long that I thought it would never end package… called ‘Funny People’. And for the most part it was two and half hours (!) well spent.

Pity poor George Simmons (Sandler). He’s like the biggest comedy star on the planet earth with his movies such as Merman and Re-Do making him wealthy beyond all belief and provides perks such as a fleet of cars, a private plane and commitment free sex with beautiful skinny women. Unfortunately George has just gotten word that he’s going to die. Soon. Usually in movies imminent death by illness is preceded by a cough but again my hats of to Mr. Apatow for just letting George get his diagnosis and get on with the business of dying.

On the other end of the spectrum we have Ira Wright (Seth Rogen), an aspiring comedian who isn’t very funny who lives on the couch of his good friend and Saturday Morning TV star Mark (Jason Schwartzman). Also staying at the flat is Ira’s best friend Leo (Jonah Hill) who is also a stand up comedian, though one far more successful than Ira at this point in their respective careers. Luck strikes Ira when he meets George at the comedy club who is attempting to reconnect to his stand up roots while coping with his impending death. George takes a liking to Ira and hires him as a joke writer and personal assistant. By default, even though Ira has known George for

all of a day, he has become George’s best friend. One might think becoming the best buddy of a Hollywood superstar is a good thing, but there is a reason George has no friends, and this is because he’s an insufferable, selfish asshole. Nonetheless Ira does what he can to assist George, urging him to contact his family and friends which will help him through this difficult time.

This ultimately leads to George reconnecting with Laura (Leslie Mann), the one who got away, who has moved on to her new life with her husband Clarke (Eric Bana) and her two precocious children. More or less. George’s illness has washed away some of the pain that he brought upon Laura back in the day forcing her to rethink her feelings about him. Normally this would be a spoiler but since it’s in the FREAKING TRAILER it really isn’t, but George gets well all of the sudden. Now George is a changed man… kind of, but not really. As Ira is learning he’s just a brand new different kind of asshole now. But will George realize this before he selfishly destroys everybody’s life in the process? Hmmm….

Despite the fact that ‘Funny People’ is one long ass movie, I’m talking ‘The Greatest Story ever Told’ long… ‘Ben-Hur’ long… it ended up being almost everything that I expected it would be before I even went into the theater. Judd Apatow truly exploits the best of what Adam Sandler has to offer both as an actor and as a comedian because this is movie that manages to be funny almost from start to finish but also has good bit of heart in it’s dramatic sequences while keeping the melodrama at a thankful minimum.

Before I saw Seth Rogen in ‘Observe and Report’ I made mention that the next time he plays a character outside of the pot smoking portly buddy will be the first time, and he follows up his great performance in ‘Observe and Report’ with arguably an even better one here as this films emotional center. Of all things.

But what makes ‘Funny People’ work for me is the simple fact that it was funny. Very funny in fact. From watching Marshall Mathers III go off on Ray Romano which made me spit my diet Pepsi on the guy sitting in front of me, something I really must stop doing, to watching Jason Schwatzman’s characters TV show of ‘Yo Teach’, ‘Funny People’ was one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a very long time. For full disclosure I am notoriously easy to amuse. True, there were probably more dick and ball jokes than I was comfortable with, I mean they could’ve cut the dick and ball jokes in half and this probably trimmed a good fifteen minutes off this flicks lengthy running time. For real.

So while this is a comedy with an epic running time similar to that of ‘The Ten Commandments’ and eventually made my butt go numb I would recommend ‘Funny People’ to anybody with an appreciation for a little raunchy comedy, some light melodrama, and a spare foam seat cushion laying around the house. Funny movie these ‘Funny People’.