Death at a Funeral

Death at a Funeral is a fast, furious, and riotously funny British farce in the tradition of Monty Python and Peter Sellers. It just may kill you with laughs, which seems to be all this amiable, off-the-wall comedy has on its agenda. The film is set around the funeral service for a family patriarch, where things soon careen out of control when it's revealed the man led a sexually shocking double life. When his midget partner (Peter Dinklage) shows up to blackmail his family and demand a hefty sum not to publish compromising photos of the two, all hell breaks loose. The manic film, directed by comic master (and Muppet legend) Frank Oz (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Bowfinger), is tricky, since staging successful farcical situations is often like walking a tightrope. This one succeeds as well as it does due to a hugely talented cast, led by Matthew Macfadyen as the largely ignored son trying too late to impress his now-deceased father by delivering a heartfelt eulogy, only to be upstaged by his brother (Rupert Graves), a best-selling novelist. There are so many other characters and subplots colliding that it's hard to keep track. However, standouts include a sweating hypochondriac (Andy Nyman) who brings some unwanted guests with him and an uptight, straitlaced fiancé (Alan Tudyk) who accidentally mistakes one of his future brother-in-law's hallucinogenic drugs for valium and spends most of the service naked on the roof. It goes on and on from there, wringing every possible joke it can from one of life's most solemn occasions. Fortunately, there's nothing deadly about this Funeral.