Running Time: 153 minutes If you're going to be making a big claim about a film in its title, you better be ready to deliver on it. People don't call a movie The Greatest Story Ever Told or The NeverEnding Story unless they're ready to deliver. Funny People is one of the worst offenders. Judd Apatow's look at the lives of stand-ups when off the stage may be about funny people, but it is the furthest thing from making us laugh. There's the odd chuckle, but for the most part the jokes (and boy are there a lot of attempts) fall flat. Obviously the film is trying to aim for an air of sincerity (it's about the cost of fame and opens with the lead discovering he has leukemia) but at the end of the day this is clearly meant to be a comedy and fails, mainly due to it being over two-and-a-half hours long. Apatow-brand comedies have a tendency to come in on the longer side of things. Comedy may be a genre that lends itself to shorter movies, but his consistently come in at over two hours out of a lack of any sense of restraint. While this sounds like more bang for your buck, there's still the same amount of humour as a ninety minute outing, with the added length coming from forced emotion. Funny People is the worst example of this. What could be cut? Any of the myriad of subplots could, although if we're being really harsh the entire stuff with Eric Bana which only serves to distract from what you feel the film should be about.
