Let’s get this out of the way first: Death at a Funeral isn’t funny. It’s a scene-by-scene (and almost line-by-line) remake of Frank Oz’s 2007 original, swapping the setting of a posh London mansion for that of a posh Los Angeles one. Gone are the British accents, but the characters, plot, and dialogue remain very nearly unchanged. The film’s simple premise—unexpected and ridiculous events complicate a family’s funeral gathering—forces it to rely on its star-laden cast to carry it through familiar, predictable gags.
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Unfortunately, even the actors seem bored. Martin Lawrence plays a slyly libidinous writer more interested in flirting than grieving, and Chris Rock remains disappointingly subdued and mild-tempered throughout. Tracy Morgan plays a bumbling hypochondriac charged with watching over the ornery, wheelchair-bound Danny Glover, while Luke Wilson spends most of the film getting rejected by his former girlfriend. It’s not that the characters are without their charms, but no one seems willing to step up and carry the film.
The script doesn’t give the actors much of a chance, anyway. Most of its gags are tired and unfunny—someone unknowingly takes a hallucinogenic and starts to act crazy, the coffin is knocked over mid-ceremony, the body tumbles out before the surprised mourners. That’s not to say the film doesn’t have its moments—Tracy Morgan gets pooped on by Danny Glover, and there’s one pretty funny R. Kelly joke—but Death at a Funeral is mostly good for groans.
Its middling, juvenile attempts at humor aside, the only real plot element in the movie is silly and not compelling. Peter Dinklage reprises his role in the original as the deceased’s secret, four-and-a-half-foot lover who blackmails Rock and Lawrence’s characters with suggestive photographs of himself and their father. Granted, I wouldn’t want to find out that my father and Peter Dinklage were secret gay lovers, but this unfortunate revelation is met with such juvenile disgust and horror that the film can’t help but come off as childishly homophobic. But what more should we expect from a film whose main comedic interests are either scatological or drug-based?
With the exact same jokes and twists as the British original, it’s tough not to wonder why this movie was made at all. Most people missed the 2007 version, I suppose, and many people presumably will watch any movie featuring both Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence. Leave it to Director Neil LaBute, the misanthrope behind 2006’s abomination The Wicker Man, to waste all that star power on a movie that doesn’t go anywhere. The bad taste that permeates the film would be permissible if its jokes were funnier. In the end, Death at a Funeral achieves the trifecta of comedic failure—it’s simultaneously offensive, unfunny, and unnecessary. At least it’s only 90 minutes long.
