The performances in "Death at a Funeral" essentially fall into three categories: actors who overact to bad effect (sorry, Loretta Devine, but there's not much to love about your grieving widow), actors who overact to positive effect (Tracy Morgan has found a role tailor-made to his very specific delivery), and actors who are nicely understated. In the latter category, you'll find Chris Rock as Aaron, the eldest son of the late patriarch. As he proved with "I Think I Love My Wife," Rock has improved greatly as an actor since his last collaboration with LaBute, "Nurse Betty." Here, he believably plays a good man having a very bad day.
Among Aaron's issues: His wife (Regina Hall) wants to move out of the in-laws' house and start a family, his brother (Martin Lawrence) is a successful author who steals all the thunder but shares none of the responsibility at the funeral, and a mysterious stranger, Frank (Dinklage), is blackmailing Aaron with revealing pictures of Frank's relationship with the deceased. There's also Aaron's sexy cousin (Zoe Saldana), who has to fight off the advances of a former boyfriend (Luke Wilson) while trying to help her fiancé (James Marsden), who has been accidentally drugged. Some elements of the plot are more than far-fetched, but the cast makes it work in a fast-paced farce.
Lawrence and Hall, who usually play high-energy motor mouths, adapt nicely to their more low-key roles. Danny Glover manages to wring laughs from the tired cliché of the cranky old man, particularly when he's abusing Morgan. Dinklage, surprisingly, doesn't just re-create his performance from the original film but takes a different, more effeminate tact that works wonderfully. But the real scene stealer is Marsden, an actor often hamstrung by his good looks into dull roles, who is free here to expose himself—literally, as he spends a good portion of the film naked on the roof. Usually when I see actors playing "high," it's painful. But Marsden's childlike joy at everything in his drugged-up state is hilarious and endearing.
Not much has changed from the original film—although a couple of references to current events make their way into the script—yet the whole affair feels a bit breezier. Much credit is due to Rock, who clearly knows his way around a punch line but also demonstrates that he understands the need for a straight man in this genre. And LaBute, best known for his lacerating commentaries on men and women in films like "The Shape of Things" and "In the Company of Men," displays a surprising deftness with broad comedy. This "Funeral" may feel familiar, but it's worth visiting.
Genre: Comedy
Written by: Dean Craig
Directed by: Neil LaBute
Starring: Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, Zoe Saldana, James Marsden, Peter Dinklage