“Funny People” Needed To Be Shorter And Funnier With Less Drama And Knishes

I wasn’t too thrilled to see “Funny People” because, frankly, I find the Jew-o (like “duo,” only more Hebrewish) of Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill sort of, well, insufferable. Throw in a way-jumped-the-shark Adam Sandler (also a Jew), the direction of hyper-overrated Judd Apatow, a terminal disease making up the bulk of the plot and standup comedy within a movie and … well, let’s just say it’s not my kind of flick.

Of course, it was funny in parts (“Get into a ball! Get into a ball!” and “I thought this was a Panda Express” were particularly memorable), but it was interminably long at two-and-a-half hours, and that just didn’t help. I also found that the lines between real-life Sandler and the fictional lead character of George Simmons were very blurry, and it was hard to tell whether that was a conscious choice by Apatow or something that just evolved as the film progressed.

The most awkward aspect of "Funny People" was how it tried to achieve the balance between comedy and drama; I just had a hard time staying on the tightrope that they were walking. A flick like this asks you to expend a lot of emotional energy, and it just didn’t pull that off, despite how very long it was. It was also kind of difficult to respect the nonexistent sexual tension between Sandler and Leslie Mann—but then again, Leslie Mann is married to Apatow, so I guess if that’s a fact you can suspend disbelief of just about anything.

Anyway, this one came across as distracted and confused to me, so my pervasive thought is that Apatow, who has made his career on the simple and the scatological, bit off more than he could chew here. In the future, he and the rest of his Hecrew (“Hebrew” + “crew”) should just stick to the basics and leave the drama alone.

Mazel tov!