Funny People

TedFlicks Rating:

$8.00 ticket on a scale of $0 to $12.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TWO MOVIES ARE CRAMMED INTO ONE

We now know the cause of restless leg syndrome. It happens when a comedy runs too long because it is really a film and its sequel packed into one movie. A little after 100 minutes into the press screening of “Funny People,” your critic’s right leg began to shake uncontrollably. For the late movie mogul Jack Warner it was the tush. When he squirmed in his seat in the screening room he knew the picture had to be recut. His daughter, Susan Warner, confirmed this for your critic over two decades ago.

Blame goes to Judd Apatow, who gets director/writer/producer credit for this 146 minute epic starring Adam Sandler very well cast as hugely successful comic George Simmons diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia in his middle 40s. Apatow has the juice to get his cut distributed. It’s a mistake. “Epic” should never be used in the same sentence with the helmer of “Knocked Up” and “The 40 Year Old Virgin.”

For the first 100 minutes, “Funny People” is a well made dark comedy. Sandler channels the worst personality traits of Milton Berle and Jackie Gleason in creating Simmons. His good side seems to have been lifted from Alan King or maybe Soupy Sales. He faces up to his illness with a mixture of stoicism and self-indulgence. In the process he hires aspiring comic Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) as his personal assistant with the accent on personal. Wright is a preposterous character who sets up jokes for the rest of the cast. For this Apatow can be forgiven. He’s a straight guy who can’t get up the b***s to hit on the chicks he fancies. Apatow makes sure we know this by having Simmons bang one and Wright’s best friend (obnoxious, self-important CW sitcom actor Mark Taylor Jackson played to perfection by Jason Schwartzman as much the same character he played in “The Darjeeling Limited”) bang the other. Wright also brings to pic its buddy element.

So far, so good. Simmons returns to his roots with standup in some very effective scenes. He embarks on a treatment that has an eight percent success rate because his illness responds to nothing else. It works. He goes into remission. Second chance at life. Whoop de doo.

He also reconnects with the one love of his life, Laura (Leslie Mann), now married to a somewhat maniacal Aussie (Clarke played by Eric Bana, who really is Australian) who cheats on her and punches people, a part Bana nails.

In one very priceless scene (which ought to be the pivotal moment in the 100 minute movie), the scene in which Simmons remission is celebrated in a Hollywood watering hole, no less a star than Ray Romano is violently dissed by rapper Eminem. This sets up one of Rogen’s few punchlines: “I thought everybody loved you.” It is a measure of how Sandler and Apatow have become Hollywood royalty that Romano, Eminem, James Taylor, Carol Liefer, Andy Dick, Paul Reiser, and Sarah Silverman all do cameos. Pic is loaded with “inside Hollywood” jokes.

It’s a lecture from Eminem about the downside of fame that leads Simmons to make a pilgrimage to Marin County to visit Laura. They hook up. The magic is still there after a dozen years. Pic should end at this point. Instead Apatow leads it astray with a 40 minute morality play including an unnecessary denouement in the Laura-Clarke marriage, a lesson in personal growth not entirely learned by Simmons, and a messy windup of the buddy film subplot. In “Funny People” it’s a waste of time both for auds and exhibitors. It should be the germ of the sequel. And if “Funny People” had ended at the 100 minute mark, there would be demand for a sequel.

“Funny People” is not suitable for kids due to sex and language. Tech credits are good. Universal should recoup its investment thanks to Sandler’s star power. Your critic gave it three stars based largely on Sandler’s work. If it had been cut down to size, it would have got at least four.

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Funny People on Netflix