Not painfully funny to me, just painful

Rating: 5/10 (23 August 2012)

Five out of ten isn't a horrible review, and I'm giving it because everyone looks at these kinds of things differently and the theme of the movie was simply the opposite of what I find enjoyable to watch. The movie was well-produced, well-paced, and well-acted, so I'm not faulting it on its technical merits. It's all perspective, and I know that. Some fool on here said the thing was all about power and control and anti- Semitism among WASPS, which simply doesn't scan at all to me and seems to indicate that some people really want to see things how they always see them anyway.
The problem that I have with the movie is that pretty much the entire thing revolves around 'embarrassment humor'. Quite simply, I empathized with Greg's character enough that I didn't like watching him get beat on for nearly two hours, watching him make things worse for himself by being both stupid and pathetic, and then have a five minute resolution at the end that makes it all 'worth it'. It's just not funny to me. Rather, it's about the last thing I want to subject myself to, especially in the guise of a comedy. Some people enjoy this kind of thing, I guess because they're glad it isn't them or can think back to a time it WAS them and be glad it's over. Don't get me wrong, there needs to be some tension in any film and the risk of embarrassment works very well, even for me, in moderate doses. But this wasn't moderate. Watching 'The Passion of the Christ' is less painful for me, because as I see it, physical pain happens. This kind of social pain is more unjust.
Good scenes? The cat milking discussion was hilarious. The lie detector scene was fun. The resolution at the end was far from adequate, but still a good scene. DeNiro is a far better comic actor than he's given credit for, and Stiller has made much of his career by being victimized by various forces on screen, so of course he does it well. It was just overload as far as I'm concerned.