Funny People

Starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, directed by Jude Apatow

Have you ever been at a meeting or a conference and there is a speaker that starts really strong and your really into it, then they go on really long and lose their point and you stop paying attention then they get really uncomfortable and dont know how to end the speach so they say something akward. Thats this movie. This is a good movie gone wrong.

The first part of this movie that tells the story of an aging, angry comic movie star facing his own mortality. To feel alive he goes back to his roots and makes a relationship with a young comedian who helps him feel like a real human being again. This part of the movie is great. I watched the movie thinking that movie reviewers had some kind of vendetta against Adam Sandler. His role in this part of the movie was great as a flawed person dealing with his success and the fact that his best days may be behind him. This is the first movie that Sandler does not hide behind that weird little kid voice he uses in his other dramatic tries, Punch Drunk Love, Spanglish and whatever that bad movie he did with Don Cheadle was called. Seth Rogen does a good job as Ira Weiner, a man haunted by his name , playing the second fiddle/ joke writer/man servant to Sandler's character, George.

Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman are great as Rogen's roomates. Schwartzman's character is the star of a sitcom called Yo Teach, which reminds me of those bad 80/90's sitcom where the teacher was strangely involved in the students lives. I would like to see that plot spun off as a sepersate movie.

The movie goes wrong after George and Ira play their triumpant concert in San Francisco. After this the movie spins into a completely new plot involving Jude Apotow's wife Leslie Mann, their two kids and Eric Bana. Look Eric Bana has a great role but this had no place in the movie. Half way thru this part I got bored and worse, it changed how I felt about George. In the first half I felt he was a man trapped by his fame, the second part he is just a rich famous self absorbed jerk. I think Leslie Mann has been great in all of he comedic parts from Big Daddy to Knocked Up, but if Judd Apatow really needed her to have a large role in the movie he could have made a completely seperate movie using hers and Bana's characters and some other wacky plot but not in this movie.

My recommendation to all who want to watch this movie and enjoy it is to do your own editing, watch the movie until the San Francisco concert then turn it off.