Before I begin my review of
Funny People, I should preface by saying I am an unapologetic
Judd Apatow fan. I think the man has an amazing comedic insight. He had me at hello (or more specifically, at
Freaks & Geeks). That said, I can tell you honestly I was a little disappointed with this movie. The laughs are there. The drama is there. The acting is there. But the timing just doesn't feel right. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I won't go through the whole story;
the trailer can do that for me. This movie is about comedy (well, half of it anyway) - going up on stage and absolutely bombing, learning from it and trying again. In many ways it reminds me of documentary from a few years back by Jerry Seinfeld called
Comedian. I wish we spent more time in this world getting a deeper understanding of where comedians find their voice.
Interspersed with this comedy, George Simmons (
Adam Sandler) is dealing with cancer. It's in these moments we get to see Sandler and
Seth Rogen show their acting chops, and they both really made an impression. Watching Sandler laying in bed, scared, talking to Rogen and questioning every serious life decision he's ever made pulled at my heart strings. I believe this also marks the first Seth Rogen performance where he isn't playing Seth Rogen.
But it all goes downhill fast when we hit the third act and lose all traces of the stand-up/cancer story line. It's almost like Apatow didn't know where he wanted to go. Everything slows down to a crawl and never really gets back on track. So I'm torn. Two-thirds of this movie is absolutely great. It's amazing. But the end is not there. If you're an Apatow fan, I suggest you see it... but others might prefer to wait for DVD.