Movie Review: Death At A Funeral by ME

Title: Death at a Funeral
Starring: Matthew MacFadyen, Peter Dinklage, Ewen Bremner, Rupert Graves, Alan Tudyk
Directed By: Frank Oz
Produced By: William Horberg, Bruce Toll, Andreas Grosch
Genre: Comedy
Release Date: August 17th, 2007
MPAA Rating: R for language and drug content.
Distributors: MGM Distribution Company

A dysfunctional British family gathers for the patriarch's funeral. Tensions rise, old conflicts are uncovered and, when a man arrives saying he's the dead man's gay lover and threatens blackmail, drastic measures are taken. -Yahoo! Movies

Frank Oz should stick to voice acting and working with puppets. There, I've said it. If you can't tell, I didn't like Death at a Funeral. The only Frank Oz film that I really enjoyed was Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and that one was a loooong time ago. What could have been an originally funny movie relies on cliched gags such as a body falling out of a coffin, people taking the wrong kind of pills (which happens to be the funniest thing in the movie, more about it in a minute), misplacement of said pills and yet two more people taking said pills! Death at a Funeral also suffers from stereotypical characters with hardly any character development. You have the average lead character Daniel who is overshadowed by his successful writer sibling Robert, the crotchety old uncle in a wheelchair, the creepy guy who is there just to hit on a family member after becoming obsessed with her after a drunken one night stand, I think you get it.

Given that this is an ensemble cast of actors and actresses that I have never heard of, I will just mention the two stand outs. Alan Tudyk plays Simon, the victim of the old pill swap gimmick. He is on a hallucinogenic trip that provides most of the laughs of the film. From seeing the coffin move to sitting on the roof naked, Tudyk steals every scene that he is in. The other member worth mentioning is Peter Dinklage, who I cannot say much about as it may give away some plot points but will say that he gives a stand out performance. The rest of the cast seems extremely mediocre when compared to these two.

Maybe I just don't get that dry British humor, but I truly can't recommend this film unless you have absolutely noting to do and have already seen Knocked Up two or more times.

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Until I can get my hands on those pills,
keep reading

Mitch E
mitchemerson@hotmail.com