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