Funny People: movie review

There has been a lot of apprehension regarding the latest Judd Apatow comedy, Funny People. The word of mouth is that it is not very good/funny. To all those morons who want a mindless comedy with jokes every other line, wake up. This isn't one of those movies. This has an actual story to tell, and it's not always a funny one. 

Adam Sandler plays George Simmons, a comedian who has all the money in the world basically. People love him, he's been in tons of movies, he's a stand up comedian, he gets any woman he wants; he's the man. Except he's not. In person, he is a selfish asshole. And thats the point. It shows that funny people are not that funny at all, until they are on stage. Simmons is suffering from a rare blood disease; a form of leukemia, and his doctor tells him there is nothing they can do. So now he has to face death, and also his entire life before now, and in doing so he realizes he did it all wrong. He calls up his old girlfriend, the one he's never stopped loving, but who left him because he cheated on her. He hires Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) to write his jokes for him in an attempt to gain a friend. He does all of these things that make you think he has changed, and then the doctor tells him he no longer has the disease, and everything goes haywire. In this second half of the film, you realize he hasn't really changed at all, he is still the same guy.

It is a sad movie, but what I liked about it was that it was completely set in real life, and these characters are real people. Adam Sandler showed every emotion there is in this movie, and was very believable as a real person. The supporting actors in the film: Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill, and Jason Schwartzman, are all perfectly cast and are at their funniest. I found myself laughing my head off and somehow thinking about death and regret all in the same movie. Only a really good movie can make the audience experience so many different things in one sitting, and this film does exactly that. 

This is a long movie, and could have easily been 10 or 15 minutes shorter. That being said, I still cared about the characters enough so that it went by fast for me. This is definitely a 5 out of 5 for me, I loved the heck out of this movie.