FUNNY PEOPLE, not so funny

I like Judd Apatow. He's a funny guy with a good grasp of comedy and a great handle on characters. He tends to make long, sloppy movies about people hanging out, and often the dialogue and screwing around that comes between setpieces is funnier than the setpieces themselves. And he's gathered together a great ensemble of actors, actresses, and writers that he uses in all his movies and mentors in the things he doesn't direct. So I was really looking forward to FUNNY PEOPLE.

Unfortunately, it's a bit of a mess.

Stand up for some spoilers below...

Here are the problems with the film.

#1 LENGTH

Unless you're making an epic sort of film, your movie should aim for under two hours. If you're telling the story of THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI or SEVEN SAMURAI, you need length to get across all the details. If you're making A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and you're detailing the rehabilitation and humiliation of a thug (and his return to brutality), clocking in at two-and-a-half hours and change is a-okay. But in a comedy, that's unforgivable. Even TOOTSIE, one of the most densely plotted and character rich comedies of all time manages to get its business done in 116 minutes (with credits). A 2:45 comedy isn't all that funny.

#2 LESLIE MANN

I like Leslie Mann a lot. She's cute, she's funny, and she's a good actress. And she's Judd Apatow's wife. So I get he wants to make her the female lead and give her a lot of screentime. But the movie's about Adam Sandler's George Simmons character and how a near-death experience affects him. Most of the movie's last 45 minutes becomes the Leslie Mann character's story. How she's unhappy in her marriage. How she falls for George again. And ultimately how she's disappointed by him and chooses her husband and her marriage. This is weird for a couple of reasons. One, she's barely in the movie before this. Two, it's George's story, and George becomes completely passive and reactive for this entire long chunk of screentime. And three, the film doesn't need it. We could easily have gotten a scene or two where the two reconnect and she almost goes away with him and ends her marriage instead of the sprawling, Mann-focused mini-movie.

#3 GEORGE AND LESLIE MANN

This relationship feels underwritten and set up wrong. We get a few scenes of George looking at old pictures, watching her old reel, and talking to her on the phone. But we don't see the two of them together, and we don't know why they belong together. He mentions she loved him before he became famous, which is a good idea (as opposed to the scores of women George now sleeps with solely because he is famous), but it isn't developed. And we learn that they broke up because George cheated on her. This is hammered home with Leslie Mann's husband (Eric Bana) and her upset that he's now cheating on her too. So you'd think that when George and Laura hook up again, things would go well and then he'd cheat on her again. It's easy enough to do -- we've seen George can't resist sleeping with fans (even two in the same night), and we know women fall all over themselves to get with him due to his fame. This is the expectation Apatow creates, and to see it not paid off is disappointing. Instead, we get a small character moment of George not appreciating Laura's daughter singing CATS. While it's a good beat, it's minor, and not the crushing disappointment that could've come. Imagine Laura sleeping with George again, deciding to leave her husband because he cheats on her, and then catching George with another woman. That would be a great beat.

#4 IRA

Seth Rogen's Ira doesn't have a lot to do in the film. He has no character arc to speak of, and that makes him feel like a weak sidekick. It would have been fairly easy to develop something the film hints at -- that what's holding Ira back (in standup and in life) is his insecurity. We could see that onstage and in how he interacts with the cute comedienne has has a crush on. And it builds to a head when he has to decide whether to speak up about George fucking up Laura's whole marriage or not. He does speak up, loses his job, but gets the confidence he needs to perfect his act and finally ask out Daisy (this last bit would've been better than the odd setup now where he likes Daisy but gets turned off after she sleeps with his roommate).

On the plus side, the film has plenty of cock jokes to go around.

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS - Character Development Up in Smoke

Comedies have it easier than almost any other kind of movie – if they’re funny, that’s really all that matters. While some of my favorite comedies are well-written (IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, PHILADELPHIA STORY, GROUNDHOG DAY, and TOOTSIE come to mind), others (CADDYSHACK, NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACTION, etc.) are not.

A BONGLOAD FULL OF SPOILERS BELOW…

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS has a lot going for it. It features two likeable leads and is consistently funny. Even though half the movie is watching guys getting stoned and hanging out, it’s very enjoyable.

It could have been an even better movie with a little more focus on the story and the characters however. The biggest flaw is that all of the friendship material that comes about at the climax of the film (Dale realizing he’s been a dick and that Saul is his best friend) is great stuff. Unfortunately, it’s not set up at all that his character weakness is not having any friends. So it comes out of nowhere and ultimately doesn’t amount to much. And it would have been very easy to integrate this setup in the existing structure of the film. When Dale goes to pick his high school girlfriend up and bumps into the creepy teacher played by Joe Lotruglio – that’s a missed opportunity. The creepy teacher could have gone to high school with Dale. And instead of just telling him to leave and being off-putting, he could have said something like “Oh, I see you’re still a stoner loser with no friends. That’s why you’re out trolling the high schools for chicks.” Not only would this have gotten across that Dale doesn’t have any friends, but it would’ve amped the tension up in the scene.

Saul doesn’t have much of a character arc either. Rogen and Goldberg could’ve given him something – perhaps building on his dream of becoming a civil engineer and having it where he goes back to school after all the events unfold.

The bad guys are similarly underdeveloped. While Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan have some meat to their relationship, Rosie Perez and Gary Cole are almost cardboard cutouts in terms of character depth.

And I don’t care how funny and charming Dale Denton is – there’s no way that someone who looks like Seth Rogen and who isn’t Seth Rogen with his fame and millions of dollars would be dating a hot high school senior.