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Visitors Review

Justin Chang 2012-05-24 22:41:03

Death at a Funeral is a strained, mirthless remake of a comedy that wasn't terribly funny to begin with.

Michael_Elliott 2012-05-24 12:27:58

Not a Classic But It Made Me Laugh

Death at a Funeral (2010) *** (out of 4) Remake of a 2007 British film, this comedy is certainly done in badtaste but the talented cast bring enough laughs to make it worthviewing. The "story", if you want to call it that, is rather simple asa group of people show up at a funeral only to have one thing go wrongafter another. This includes the dead man's sons (Chris Rock, MartinLawrence) constantly fighting, a man showing up claiming to be thelover of the dead man and we even get a white boyfriend who everyonehates and they're really going to hate him after he accidentally takessome acid. This is a rather vulgar movie that makes a living on badtaste and dirty jokes but what makes them so funny is that no one wantsthe stuff to be vulgar. It's strange but all the characters here aregood people who mean no one any harm yet they just get into situationswhere they're forced to do things that they normally wouldn't do andthat's what makes the film so funny. The film contains a terrific castlead by Rock and Lawrence but we also get Danny Glover, Tracy Morgan,Luke Wilson, Loretta Devine, Peter Dinklage, James Marsden and KeithDavid. All of the actors are obviously given it their all. Sometimesthey deliver wonderful jokes while at other times they fall flat ontheir face but no matter how the joke comes out you can at least seehow hard they're working to try and make the laugh. One of thehighlights of the film is when the crippled character played by Glovergets diarrhea and has Morgan rush him to the bathroom but his hand getsstuck in the toilet as the old man sits down. Another running gag hasthe father being gay and hiding it his entire life and his son playedby Lawrence gets upset because the lover is white. The movie runs avery quick 90-minutes but every ten-seconds there appears to be a newjoke being thrown out. I give the film credit for pushing all the rightbuttons and at least attempting to make fun of more dramaticsituations. There's no good flow to the movie and the story iscertainly nothing special but people are tuning into this thing tolaugh and they'll be doing that quite a bit from start to finish.

Anton Bitel 2012-05-21 02:29:28

If only LaBute had himself been allowed to rewrite the screenplay in his own inimitably mordant style, it might have been so much sharper and leaner

omaiyasele 2012-05-20 22:53:47

Advice to everyone - watch the original first.

I made a big mistake by watching this version just a day before I thenviewed the original, and the truth is that this is a totallyunnecessary movie. When African-American comedy is placed besideBritish humour, the Americans are found wanting. Black comedy with itscrass jokes and oftentimes outlandish mannerisms seems to fall flatwhen placed side by side with the subtleness that makes British comedyalways standout. I'm sure the major reason why this remake was done wasbecause those involved were enthralled by original; but I guess if itwas this version that was made first, no one would have bothered toremake it. Can anyone please answer: Why was this film ever made?

trimmelin 2012-05-19 17:43:17

This movie is terrible.

This is a terrible remake, the original came out less than three yearsago. Originally the film is set in Britain and the dark humor rolls throughthe entire movie. The new one? Not so much. It seems someone decidedthat the the original "Death at a Funeral" wasn't 'black' enough, sothey did a black-cast, and changed the location to urban America. Thedialogue and story? All the same as the original. This remake seems too forced. The jokes aren't funny, the actors seemfake (despite it being a great cast) and overall just terrible. I hope that you take the time to watch the original and have somelaughs instead of this garbage. Hollywood just seems to be gettinglazy.

Karen Krizanovich 2012-05-19 02:41:48

This American remake of the 2007 UK-set farce is superior in every way.

Matt Pais 2012-05-18 07:52:09

A horrible movie is remade into a slightly less horrible one.

Peter Moxom 2012-05-17 17:24:47

How to spoil a good movie.

After watching and thoroughly enjoying the 2007 version at a friend'splace, I thought I would get my own copy. Unfortunately, I didn't knowabout this remake until I played the disc. I'm afraid this just didn'twork for me. The scene set-ups did nothing to help suspension ofdisbelief, rather the opposite. I couldn't transcend the sense that Iwas just watching actors trying to be funny with inappropriate linesdelivered with poor timing, as opposed to the original version thatemployed irony instead. I can't understand why this movie grossed thefigure mentioned above, unless others made the same mistake I did. Thedisc I bought now resides somewhere near the bottom of my trash bin.

Jeff Vice 2012-05-11 22:10:01

Say what you will about the subtler European style of humor not translating overseas, at least it's more tolerable than this sort of over-the-top nincompoopery.

2012-05-11 17:08:38

Darkly comic portrait of a family coming apart as they come together for a funeral

I saw the original Death at a Funeral when it played at our local theater. I liked it, but I liked this remake even better. While the scenarios are almost identical, the cultural differences between the two families made them feel like completely different films. It was a stroke of genius on the part of director Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men, Lakeview Terrace, and the unfortunate remake of The Wicker Man), to recast Peter Dinklage as the uninvited guest with a secret, but otherwise to make the grieving families quite different. The original worked due to a delicate blend of deadpan delivery and madcap farce - deadpan and madcap being the dominant modes of British comedy - but with the emphasis on deadpan. Here the emphasis is on madcap, especially in the performance of Tracy Morgan, but it still manages to feel like a plausible depiction of a real-to-life family, and never quite goes to ridiculous. In both, the humor comes mostly from a tension between the expectations of dignity and decorum at a funeral and the increasingly undignified activities of its participants: drug-crazed hallucinations, sibling rivalry, sex-craziness and jealousy, secretive revelations, blackmail, and possibly even murder. Here, though, I just thought it was simply more funny. While I grinned watching the first one, I laughed out loud with this version. Danny Glover was delightful as a mad-as-hell uncle; Chris Rock played the straight man, the put-upon and under appreciated son of the deceased; Martin Lawrence played perfectly the cocky and successful writer come home; Tracy Morgan plays the pratfall guy and takes some hilarious crap in this film; and Zoe Saldana as the niece of the deceased and James Marsden as her tripped-out fiance round out the mix. It's a terrific ensemble cast, and Neil LaBute times it all perfectly, managing to make perfectly clear what's going on when and where in what might have been a much more chaotic mixture with a less competent director at the helm. Good stuff.

Rick Kisonak 2012-05-11 01:48:22

So strained, noisy and mirthlessly scatological, it's hard to believe it features Rock and Morgan as opposed to a cast of latex cartoons with Eddie Murphy inside them.

Jeanne Kaplan 2012-05-10 13:17:48

There must be a shortage of original ideas in Hollywood for Sony Pictures to remake this stinker.

Jimi 2012-05-03 09:49:00

Not a Great Movie But Certainly Not Racist

Tracey Morgan is "too over the top" for me but some find him humorous. It is a remake and I'm not a big fan of remakes. Those calling this film racist just have a chip on their shoulders and need to get a life. If one wants to see real racism watch slasher films that include black actors, or older films like Gone with the Wind, any Charlie Chan movies, etc.

2012-05-03 00:52:13

SOPHOMORIC AND FUNNY.

Yes, the humor at times was sophomoric. I have not seen the original version, so I can't compare the two. The movie has little in the way of plot, just people at a funeral addressing odd issues as they arise. Chris Rock places the "straight man" and is our voice of reason. Martin Lawrence, plays his brother, who is a published author. He pretends to have a lot of money, but is broke. He spends his time at the funeral attempting to pick up the hot 18 year old neighbor girl. He asks her to NYC and says, "I got all kinds of snacks. Like Sugar Daddies?" Chris' mother laments about not having any grandchildren in front of Chris' spouse who wants sex every day. During the funeral she says, "We got 5 minutes, I'm not wearing any panties." Danny Glover plays the curmudgeon uncle in a wheel chair. In one scene he proclaims, " I know a dead man when I see one. I live in a retirement home." The cousin has a white male boyfriend who is high, but not his fault. She tells her dad he is on Valium. Dad replies, "Your mother was on Valium for 30 years and she never knocked over a coffin." Meanwhile, her ex-boyfriend is also at the funeral and is trying to rekindle their romance. He laments, "I've only been sleeping 8 hours at a night. I am at my wit's end." If you enjoy that type of humor, plus a little slap stick, you will enjoy this somewhat low-brow production as much as I did.

2012-05-02 13:17:54

Didn't Like it

This review is from: Death At A Funeral (2010) (Amazon Instant Video) Was excited about the star-studded cast, but I really didn't enjoy the potty humor in this movie. And there was a lot more of it in this one than in the original, it seems like.

NorthernDragon 2012-05-02 03:37:04

A pointless remake of an excellent British film.

Despite having double the budget and some pretty big Hollywood starsthe 2010 release adds nothing whatsoever, and in fact is in many waysinferior.Not only are there some very lacklustre performances in particular fromChris Rock and Martin Lawrence as the two sons of the deceased, but thecamera work in some sections is truly awful with the decision to use"handheld" or steadicam photography resulting in the picture shaking sobadly in some sections that it is almost hard to watch.Despite all this many of the best moments of the original are copiedperfectly and work just as well as they did the first time aroundmeaning that there are several good laughs to be had, but when you'vegot the choice of watching this or the original there's really nocontest.Distinctly average.

Elizabeth Weitzman 2012-04-28 23:14:04

You must really love a movie if you decide to remake it just three years after its release. But unless you also intend to improve upon the first attempt, what's the point?

g-bodyl 2012-04-28 07:14:53

Hilarious!

I'm glad I got the chance to see this because it was absolutely funny!I was concerned at first because of the African American cast. I'm notracist or anything because those kind of movies are not good. Idespised the Tyler Perry movies. But, this turned out to be thefunniest movie I saw so far in 2010.This is about a family getting together for a funeral of two brother'sdad. Unfortunately, the funeral doesn't work as well as hoped becauseof many mishaps.The acting is great. I been a fan of Martin Lawrence, Chris Rock, andDanny Glover for years. The others such as Zoe Saldana and JamesMarsden were great.My favorite scenes was the homage to Danny Glover and the toilet fromLethal Weapon and when Zoe's boyfriend gets high on drugs.Overall, this is a fantastic film. I don't care much for the original.I rate this film 9/10.

Luke Y. Thompson 2012-04-24 21:31:29

The new DEATH AT A FUNERAL is every bit as profane as its predecessor, but it's a hell of a lot funnier.

2012-04-24 08:42:56

Everyone

This was really an all star line up for this movie. It is too bad that most of the talent is wasted. The movie moves along at a breakneck speed, but sadly most of the jokes misfire or don't hit as strong as they should. There were some really talented comics in the movie and most of them were used as straight men while the standard actors had all the funny parts. It is worth a rental, but I wouldn't buy without watching first.