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Friday, April 16, 2010

MOVIE REVIEW
Death At A Funeral
It's Minstrel Show Time.  Do Your Thing, Guys.
 
Tracy Morgan and Chris Rock in "Death At A Funeral", which opened today across the U.S. and Canada.  
Sony Pictures/Screen Gems

By Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW 
Friday, April 16, 2010

A classic comedy of errors, "Death At A Funeral" steps in its own miserable mess.  It is funny, for about three or four minutes, but after that it has nowhere to go down.  And that's where it stays, literally mired in the muck of bathroom humor.

Call it the death of comedy.  Call it a funeral where common sense is about to be buried.

And Neil LaBute directs this unfocused and scrambled egg-like caper.  Mr. LaBute, a strong writer whose plays and films on the misanthropic parts of human beings tend to find more currency in their blunt and angry invectives than such cinematic misfires as "The Wicker Man", "The Shape Of Things" (also his play) and "Possession" is left to fend for others' material, namely Dean Craig's script, which has its moments.

In scenarios strung together solely to keep the audience laughing and avoid any excuse for terminating the film's idiocy and hysterics, Mr. Craig brings a lunacy to the madcap that is blocks any notion that a story even exists in all of this screaming and carrying on.  The film is a showcase for tomfoolery and mistrelsy.

Just three years ago, the original "Death Of A Funeral" had laughs a plenty, and one cast member from that film, Peter Dinklage, is back to contribute to the latest mayhem.  He gets his day in the sun but it's all in the service of clowning and hijinks, which the film has plenty of already, thanks mainly to Tracy Morgan (who continues to sink lower and lower after "Cop Out") and James Marsden, who parades around naked because he has to.  (That's apparently what the script said, I guess.)

This installment of scatological horror takes place in Los Angeles, and everyone is gathered for the funeral of Chris Rock's Aaron character.  Mr. Rock plays straight man to all the chaos around him, while everyone else just loses their heads.  It's difficult not to lose your mind in the absurdity while watching this film.  You're either sure you're going insane because you can't believe the sadness of this painful comedy, or because you've been forced to laugh to keep from crying.

With: Martin Lawrence, Zoe Saldana, Regina Hall, Loretta Devine, Luke Wilson, Danny Glover, Columbus Short, Keith David.

"Death At A Funeral" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America for language, drug content and some sexual humor.  The film's running time is one hour and 33 minutes.


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Read more movie reviews and stories from Omar here.

Read Omar's "Far-Flung Correspondent" reports for America's pre-eminent Film Critic Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times - here



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