Product: Funny People
Rating: 4.0
Seriously Funny People
After the success of "40 Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up" the honchoes allowed auteur Judd Apatow to indulge himself here. "Funny People" as at once ambitious, epic, and borderline self indulgent. I was going to dismiss this flick as a noble failure but something about it resonated in my self-conscious. My main gripe was that the film's main character, George Simmons(Adam Sandler), was an overbearing narcissistic heel. But it dawned on me that this was purely intentional and that Apatow and Sandler are taking a leap in expecting their audience to accept this reality. This is a hard film to like but ambitious viewers should admire what Apatow is attempting here. In this epic of sorts Apatow gives some choice parts to the immensely talented Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill and they run with it. It's kind of like Sandler is passing the torch or at the very least sharing the spotlight with these newcomers. Debits here are possible overlength, too much scatalogical humor, and a touch of nepotism in the casting(Leslie Mann, Apatow's wife, and his two daughters are prominently cast. Lot's of delicious cameos my fave being Ernest Thomas, "Raj" from "What"s Happening" as a television school principal.