Funny People

Rating

: * * *

Verdict

:

Great laugh, but lengthy running time will numb the bum.

If Judd Apatow (

Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin

) wants to prove he and his friends are the funniest guys in Hollywood, he's succeeded.

Funny People

is packed full of funny people who'll have you laughing along with their silly jokes and clever repartee. Not bad for a film about a guy with cancer. The only thing not funny is the almost 2 running time.

This is Apatow's most mature work to date, a comedy with a serious side that asks: what do you do when you discover you're going to die. The supplementary question asks, how does your life change when you discover that actually, you're not going to die?

Sandler is perfect as George Simmons, a comedian diagnosed with terminal cancer. Rich, famous and alone, he hires a new assistant, budding stand-up comic Ira Wright (Rogen) to write material for him (his own routines have become a little morbid) and help sort out his affairs.

Ira is the only one aware of George's condition, and the two become close, developing the nearest thing to a genuine friendship George has had for some time.

Ira encourages George to make amends with estranged family and friends, including the love of his life, his ex-fiancee Laura (Leslie Mann).

It's about here the film begins to lose focus, wandering from a bro-mance to romance as George starts to woo Laura, who conveniently is unhappily married to a cheating, gregarious Australian (Eric Bana).

Jason Schwartzman and another Apatow veteran Jonah Hill also feature, as Ira's flatmates and fellow comedians. Apatow does a great job of capturing the competitiveness between them, more than likely inspired by his own experiences while flatting with Sandler when they were young comedians.

If that wasn't enough, the characters and story strands just keep on coming and a long list of America's best-known comedians have cameos as themselves: all of which contributes to its excessive length and the feeling that Apatow has two leads and two films on his hands here, with Ira needing a movie to himself.

Still, there are plenty of crass jokes; though, being a personal story this is the least edgy of Apatow's films. Many of a the characters feel genuine and its lack of an over-the-top emotional climax is refreshing. If only we had got to that climax 20 minutes earlier, then this would have been a real treat.

Francesca Rudkin

Cast

: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen

Director

: Judd Apatow

Running Time

: 148 mins

Rating

: R16 - (offensive language, sexual material and other content that may offend)