Review: Death at a Funeral

You don't remake another movie this friggin' soon! That's what I told myself after hearing that Chris Rock would be remaking Frank Oz's 2007 Brit-comedy, Death at a Funeral, a well stocked film with plenty of gags but somehow less funny than it should've been. Perhaps it had to do with me not always getting the English sense of humor. The cultural differences sometimes fly right over my head. Even for a film that is essentially one long gag, it seemed to be missing something.

So here we have American version, dirtied up and urbanized for our comedic pleasure, and I'll be darned if it isn't better than the original. Chris Rock stars as Aaron, the "responsible" son set to bury his highly respected, deeply loved father. Martin Lawrence is his irresponsible brother, Ryan, a writer who only visits when it's a special occasion, like one somebody kicks the bucket. They should've known it was going to be a bad day when the funeral home delivers an Asian man in the casket rather than dear ol' Dad.

You can cut the tension in the house with a dull knife, and it only gets worse the more people show up. Aaron and his wife are being pressured into having a kid, Aaron's trying to match his brother's writing success and failing, jealous exes and cranky old uncles only add to the drama, with hilarious results. Even if you saw the original, the jokes are suprisingly fresher and livelier here, and that's thanks to the talented ensemble cast director Neil Labute(The Wicker Man, Lakeview Terrace) put together. In particular, the standout is James Marsden as Oscar, nervous boyfriend to Zoe Saldana's Elaine. In an attempt to calm his nerves over meeting her father, who obviously hates him already, Oscar downs what he thinks is Zanax but turns out to be pharmaceutical grade ecstacy. Gags like this usually are dead on arrival, but Marsden has turned the corner from third string pretty boy to highly effective comedian over the last few years.

The rest of the cast reads like a who's who of African-American cinema. Rock, Lawrence, Morgan, Danny Glover, Zoe Saldana, Columbus Short, Loretta Devine. Funeral manages to stay away from Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins territory by keeping the comedy universal.

And here I thought funerals were supposed to be somber affairs, but I laughed throughout. While I still might have some issues with seeing this remake done so soon, and basically you're seeing the same film with different people involved, there's no denying that Death at a Funeral works, and we can throw the stodgy old one into the urn where it belongs.