Death at a Funeral

In this film’s defense, almost all of its mercifully brief 90 minutes are in real time (i.e., the time that passes on-screen is equal to the time that passes in the fictional narrative). That’s not an easy trick to pull off, and director Neil LaBute, who has better things to do with his time, at least manages to do it. However, the film itself is an unfunny mess about a funeral that goes awry when a very short man (Peter Dinklage) arrives to blackmail the dead man’s family. It seems that the deceased was engaged in wheelbarrow-style anal sex with the short man, and there are photographs to prove this. Thus, the man’s two sons, Aaron (Chris Rock) and Ryan (Martin Lawrence), must come up with $30,000, or the short man will gay the hell out of the funeral. Meanwhile, a white person accidentally takes acid; Danny Glover poops on Tracy Morgan’s hand; Luke Wilson tries to rape Zoe Saldana; and Ron Glass thinks wistfully of the time when he was on Barney Miller.