Secondhand Reviews: "Death At A Funeral"

Rated R for a scene of non-sexual nudity, drug use, and frequent strong language throughout.

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It's become distressingly common to see movies... especially comedies, for some weird reason... from other nations remade as big studio Hollywood productions (another indication of the lack of original ideas coming out of the so-called dream factory). But you generally have to wait at least five, six years... or more... and more often than not the original film got only a limited release in the U.S., if any, so you aren't really able to compare the two. But a mere THREE YEARS after the 2007 version of "Death At A Funeral", Hollywood brings us a rehash that not only Americanizes it but shifts the emphasis from typical British straight-faced comedy to American broad mugging and bleeds the film of much of the humor, even though this is about as close to a shot-for-shot remake as you can get without being totally identical.

It seems that the father of a large, scattered clan has just died and his funeral is about to be held in the home where he lived most of his life (this at his own request). All the family members who haven't gotten along for years, all the friends, companions & significant others who are hated by prominent members of the family... they all come together for this solemn occasion. of course, everything that can possibly go wrong does go wrong, in a perfect illustration of Murphy's Law, up to and including a secretive character from Dad's past who is willing to keep quiet about some of dad's past activities... for a reasonable price.

One of the reasons I love British humor so much is that, by and large, you don't have characters who never let you forget that they know how funny they're being... it plays the laughs totally seriously, and they're all the funnier as a result. That was certainly the case in the original 2007 film, but in this version, it seems like no line of dialogue is spoken when shouting it will do, no actor can just BE funny, they have to ACT funny with every expression on their face and every movement of their body. Chris Rock is a hysterical stand-up comedian, hardly anyone funnier... but you wouldn't have any idea about that from his performance as the jealous oldest son of the family, for instance.

And in the original film, Alan Tudyk (of the TV series "Firefly") was almost unbelievably hilarious as the fiance of one of the family daughters who accidentally injests a halucinogenic drug and causes all manner of chaos... he was as funny as it's humanly possible to get. But James Marsden (Cyclops of the X-Men movies) simply is NOT a funny actor, and to watch him straining painfully for humourous effect in the same role is unbelievable in a whole different way. It's also rather painful to watch Danny Glover suffer through all the indignities most wacky comedies like to pile on older actors these days, though it was mildly amusing to see his get off a line that was clearly an echo of one his classic "Lethal Weapon" catch phrases.

For some bizarre reason, Peter Dinklage, who played the blackmailer, has been recruited from the original cast to play the very same role in this version. He seems to have forgotten everything he knew about how to act funny and caught the same "let me overdo this as much as I possibly can" disease that everyone else has. At least Ron Glass (oddly enough, also from the series "Firefly") maintains a certain amount of reserved dignity and still manages to be amusing, and a genuinely character rather than a stereotype. The rest of the cast should have taken some cues from him.

You might be thinking "This is all well and good, but what if I've never seen the original? Does this movie work in its own right?" Well, that depends. If you prefer loud, brash, obvious humor to the subtle, straight faced stuff... and I know a lot of people who do... then yes, you probably will have no problems with "Death At A Funeral" 2010. If you're a fan of Ron Glass, definitely. And there ARE a few things about it that I appreciated. Certainly, the fact that Zoe Saldana, who is black, has a fiance (Marsden) who's white and nothing is made of that fact, nor is the fact that Luke Wilson, also white, is her rival suitor (and preferred by the Glass character)... in fact, the racial element is never made a big deal of at all. I guess that's progress of a sort. But what I'd really like to see is a movie that was an original creation and not a remake of an idea someone else did better only three years ago... THAT would be REAL progress. But probably too much to hope for.

One last thought: director Neil Labute made some films earlier in his career ("In The Company Of Men", "Your Friends And Neighbors", and others) that would have made him seem like the perfect director to re-do the bitter, sarcastically humorous original film. But since he's stopped writing his own screenplays, he seems to be getting more and more commercial Hollywood, and this movie is so generic that almost anyone could have made it. Labute was a unique talent, and I'm sorry to see that talent go the way of so many others. But there's still hope for the viewer who hasn't seen either version: skip this one and see the British original. You won't be sorry. And it should be easy enough to find: it is, after all, ONLY THREE YEARS OLD.