Death at a Funeral

Remaking a movie that came out within the last
few years really isn't a good idea, but the makers of Death at a Funeral will argue differently. They will argue that there is comedy to be had. I will rebut with "No there isn't"

The movie stars Chris Rock as a wannabe writer whose father has passed away. This means that his entire family will there whether he likes it out not. This includes his mother how appears to be not so much depressed by the death of her husband, but by the fact that Rock can't get his wife pregnant. His uncle (Danny Glover) is an old man in a wheelchair who likes to curse and hit people with his cane. My question is: Why does he have a cane in the first place if he is bound to a wheelchair? To hit people with is all I could come up with.

We meet the rest of the family and then it is onto the funeral, which is held at the house. A little person (Peter Dinklage) shows up and tells Rock that he and Rock's father were lovers. The LP demands $30,000 or else he is going to tell Rock's mother. Rock scrambles to keep the secret, but it is slowly revealed to everyone.

I like screwball comedies, but this one is too zany for it's own good. Take, for example, the scene where Glover's character has to take a shit. This might have worked in another movie, but comes off as gross and unfunny here. It seems that the filmmakers were so desperate for laughs that they thought that this would bring down the house.

For a movie that contains some of the best black comedians, you know you're in trouble when the funniest person in the movie is the only white character. This character is played by James Marsden of X-Men fame and he is very funny, playing someone who has taken drugs but doesn't know it.

The rest of the movie is way below average. Everyone involved has one or two funny lines, but when you are dealing with such a big cast this amounts to almost no laughs. There are chuckles, but no good laughs. I wish that they had been able to bring this cast together in a different movie. Maybe then they would have been able to shine.