Funny People

Release Date (UK) - 28 August 2009

Certificate (UK) - 15

Country - USA

Director - Judd Apatow

Runtime - 146 mins

Starring - Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen

Adam Sandler is George Simmons, a famous film comedian who discovers he is dying from a rare blood disease. Meanwhile Seth Rogen is Ira - a struggling, and failing, stand up comedian. As George struggles to cope with his diagnosis and returns to doing stand up gigs he meets Ira at an improv night and recruits him as his personal joke writer slash assistant. This slightly improbable relationship is the focus of a film that doesn't really go anywhere in terms of plot development but then what do you expect from the director of films such as Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin

As George reflects back on his life there is early footage of young Sandler himself and with Georges career in some slightly ridiculous movies you can't help feeling the irony here as we wonder whether Sandler himself echoes feeling about cliches of celebrity stardom voiced by George. One cameo laden scene highlights the negativity here towards fame as Georges' celebrity friends gather round after learning of his illness (playing themselves rather than fake celebrities) with a funny interchange between Eminem and George as Eminem says how depressed he's become with how restricting his fame is. Perhaps Sandler himself is tired of Hollywood and waishes he too could return to his days of stand up and Saturday Night Live.

Personally I've never found Seth Rogen funny and have been surprised how many people do, but in this film he's not character acting and just playing the comedian and I found myself laughing at this jokes throughout whereas I nearly walked out of Observe and Report. At 90 minutes this could have been an excellent comedy and one of the funniest so far this year, with high quality stand up and regular plot jokes much funnier than the very basic crude jokes in The Hangover but not quite as clever as the hilarious satire of In the Loop. However at this point the story moves to what basically is a Judd Apatow family showcase, with a boring and uninteresting side plot that goes nowhere but shows off Apatow's wife and two daughters. Georges illness has made him realise he was stupid to cheat on old girlfriend Laura (Leslie Mann, aka Mrs Apatow) and he goes to visit her with Ira to try and rekindle their relationship, even though she is now married with kids. There is even one awful cringe worthy scene where they watch a home video of the oldest girl, Mable (Maude Apatow) preforming in Cats, as Apatow basically gives his daughter screen time for her own personal showreel. How this got past studios execs still amazes me and this subplot ruins an otherwise funny film.