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Death At A Funeral Three
years ago the American director Frank Oz made a very British film farce
called “Death At A Funeral,” with Matthew Macfadyen
and Rupert Graves. Now that
it’s been remade here in America maybe it should be called “Death
At A Funeral In Blackface,” because it is the remake – almost
word for word – of the British “Death At A Funeral.” The producers have hired the original
writer, Dean Craig, just changing the casting from Brits to Blacks, including
Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Danny Glover, and the one holdover from the
original, Peter Dinklage as the dead father’s
secret lover. When
the original came out I recall (with the aid of my review at the time) that I
enjoyed it but didn’t think it was a film for the ages. Now, after seeing it again in its new
casting, I feel even less like using a superlative. In fact it feels stale, as though the
jokes and situations were all laid out in advance. The coffin moves. (Did you not see that coming?) Uncle Russell in the wheelchair has
diarrhea while his nephew gets his hand stuck under the seat. Young white guest, engaged to a niece
of the dead man, has taken a hallucinogen thinking it was Valium and ends up
on the roof, naked. And so
on. Funny the first time, boring
the second. Yes,
I know this version of “Death At A Funeral” is made for a whole
new audience, and in fact it doesn’t shy away from interracial
marriages either, and good for Chris Rock, who produced it as well as
starring in it. But you’d
think that two years after the first one someone would have thought up some
new jokes, some new business to help the comedy along. It is a farce, after all. What was sad was that everyone in the
film seemed also to have seen it before;the
first time someone is shown in closeup screaming at
a sordid revelation it’s funny.
By the sixth time it’s just dull. |