Friday, August 31, 2007

CAN HE MAKE A SUGGESTION THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE VIOLENCE, OR IS THIS THE WRONG CROWD FOR THAT? Death at a Funeral is a nicely constructed, but utterly forgettable farce, with one exception--ALOTT5MA favorite Alan Tudyk, who plays a barrister engaged to the decedent's niece who desperately wants to impress his father-in-law-to-be. As the trailer reveals, Tudyk's character winds up accidentially taking a powerful hallucinogen on his way to the funeral, with predictable impact. What makes the performance is not merely the ludicrousness of it and how much Tudyk commands the screen when he's called upon to do so, but that Tudyk is constantly in character--even when just in the corner of the frame, moving from casual hallucinations that "everything is so green" to becoming convinced that the coffin is moving (a joke that has a payoff at the end) until, by the end of the film, he's on top of the roof, naked. It's a great, great comic performance, and I hope it leads to him getting more respect.

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