Comedy, Reviews

Populaire

Immaculately styled French period romcom starring Déborah Francois and Romain Duris

This immaculately styled French period romantic comedy signals its pedigree with a colourful cartoon credit sequence reminiscent of cute and kookie Hollywood comedies circa the 1950s and 60s. And in fact, co-writer and director Régis Roinsard’s feature…

Run for Your Wife

Hopelessly dated and poorly executed comedy starring Danny Dyer

This comprehensively cack-handed adaptation of the long-running West End stage sex comedy will have all but the most thick of skin and dim of humour running from the cinema as though their very lives depended up on it. Co-director and screenwriter Ray…

I Give it a Year

Abysmal, humourless newlyweds comedy starring Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall and Anna Faris

Nat (Rose Byrne) is a shallow, uptight career girl. Josh (Rafe Spall) is an insensitive, laddish boor. For reasons we don’t glean, since it all happens during the opening credits, they get married, and proceed to be vile to one another, until, within…

Warm Bodies

Hollywood's stab at the zom-rom-com starts off well, but slides into Twilight-style storytelling

Having already deprived vampires of any real bite and declawed werewolves into the bargain, Hollywood now turns its attention to zombies and attempts to tap into their sensitive side with zom-rom-com Warm Bodies. The result, while not quite dead on…

Movie 43

A sloppily slung together anthology film starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet

Movie 43 is as star-studded as it is puerile and therein lies its solitary appeal. With directors including Peter Farrelly, Brett Ratner and Elizabeth Banks, it’s an anthology that’s sloppily slung together, combining spectacular immaturity with…

The Alternative Comedy Experience

Stewart Lee curates a series of alternative comedians, but offers little discussion on the genre

Stewart Lee is not sure that he and Comedy Central will have the same hopes for his curated 12-part show. The comic sees it as being similar to a ‘slightly under-attended Tuesday night at an arts centre’; Comedy Central’s ambitions remain unclarified…

Grabbers

A contrived, one-note sci-fi horror comedy in which a community stays drunk to repel an alien attack

In Grabbers, an interplanetary invasion of earth can potentially be foiled, not by the fighting spirit of the human race, but due to the aversion of the aliens to drinking blood contaminated by alcohol. It’s a situation which forces the inhabitants of a…

Playing For Keeps

A rigidly formulaic and shamelessly sentimental romcom starring Gerard Butler

Gerard Butler has fared pretty badly when it comes to tackling romantic comedies (if you dare recall The Ugly Truth and PS I Love You) and his latest film doesn’t improve on his record. A predictable tale of redemption, Playing for Keeps is a…

Pitch Perfect

A surprisingly smart take on the potentially clichéd 'songs & starlets' material

While the Glee concert movie proved to be a surprise flop last year, the idea of packaging up chart songs and glamorous teenage starlets has been a Hollywood trope since the advent of sound. The latest effort, Pitch Perfect, is a simple enough piece of…

Celeste and Jesse Forever

Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg star in an intriguing take on the well-worn romcom genre

A couple of years ago Hollywood posed the question of whether a man and a woman could be friends without the question of sex rearing its head (No Strings Attached, Friends With Benefits). In Celeste and Jesse Forever, writers Rashida Jones and Will…

The Oranges

A pithy if not exactly groundbreaking suburban comedy, starring Hugh Laurie and Leighton Meester

In between concluding his stint on House and reinventing himself as a jazz musician, Hugh Laurie can be found in this modest US indie. A New Jersey-set tragi-comedy that treads the same ground as Sam Mendes’ American Beauty (without, thankfully, the…

Starbuck

Likeable but flawed comedy drama about a prolific sperm donor

David Wozniak (Patrick Huard) is a loser. He works – barely – at his dad’s butcher shop; he neglects his girlfriend Valerie (Julie LeBreton); he’s borrowed money from gangsters to start his own domestic pot farm, and is unable to pay it back. On top of…

Nativity 2: Danger In The Manger!

A shambolic, festive family offering that grates from start to finish, starring David Tennant

Festive cheer will be in short supply for anyone who endures Nativity 2: Danger In The Manger!, a shambolic family offering that grates from start to finish. Written and directed, like the original, by Debbie Isitt, the film sees David Tennant…

Up There

Zam Salim's Scottish BAFTA-winning dark comedy is a simple, solid idea that’s stretched too thin

This dark comedy from debut British filmmaker Zam Salim has a promising concept but nowhere interesting to go with it. The story takes place in an imagined afterlife, another plane of existence in our own world where dead souls must pass the time, able…

Mental

Toni Collette shines in PJ Hogan's comedy tackling mental health issues

Muriel’s Wedding launched writer/director PJ Hogan onto a stuttering Hollywood career, but after the bland confection of Confessions of a Shopaholic, Hogan has returned to his native Australia. Mental is an outrageous comedy reuniting him with his…

Gambit

Charmless remake of 1966 caper flick, starring Colin Firth, Alan Rickman and Cameron Diaz

A very loose remake of the 1966 film starring Michael Caine as a cat burglar, the most notable thing about this art scam caper movie is that it’s been written by Joel and Ethan Coen. Don’t get too excited, though. While it boasts the precision plotting…

Stewart Francis: Outstanding in his Field

Stewart Francis has gone on record as stating that a narrative, storytelling form of comedy is not for him. He wants to give crowds more ‘bang for their buck’ by delivering a barrage of jokes and so it’s quite simple to conclude whether a Francis show…

Grassroots

Eminently dislikeable political comedy starring Jason Biggs

There’s a lot of things going for Grassroots. It’s a political comedy timed for release when US election fervour is at its peak; it focuses on the same type of community-led campaigning that won Barack Obama his first term; it has the feelgood status of…

Sightseers

Outrageously funny British comedy about a duo on a killing spree

Imagine if Mike Leigh had been asked to direct Natural Born Killers or Oliver Stone's talents had been unleashed on a version of Nuts In May. That is the level at which Ben Wheatley's third feature is pitched. A bone dry, very British black comedy, it…

Here Comes The Boom

Undemanding comedy set in the world of mixed martial arts, starring Kevin James

A mixed-martial arts comedy from Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production line, and taking its title from the chorus of a raucous song by nu metal band P.O.D., Frank Coraci’s film doesn’t have the pedigree to inspire much confidence. But Coraci, the…

Fun Size

Tween Hallowe'en comedy that never delivers on its promise of its weak premise

After the recent death of Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch, the band announced that they would not license their music for use in adverts. Presumably the crassest of teen comedies are a more acceptable medium, as Fun Size’s lamentable climax involves their…

Excision

Gore-filled black comedy for those with strong stomachs

A blood-drenched slice of menstrual angst, first time writer/director Richard Bates Jr’s horror film, based on his own 2008 short, is most certainly not for the squeamish. A coming of age drama studded with hallucinatory imagery, it opens with a gushing…

Stitches

Poorly handled killer clown comedy-horror starring Ross Noble

Teenager Tom (Tommy Knight) is an uptight, nervous wreck. After a traumatic experience at a childhood birthday party, at which a scuzzy kids’ entertainer named Stitches (Ross Noble) was accidentally killed, he’s grown up to be a pill-popping neurotic…

Seven Psychopaths

Unabashed violent comedy from director of In Bruges

Martin McDonagh’s follow-up to In Bruges is as fiercely violent as its title suggests, and a whole lot funnier. Its film-within-a-film concept finds alcoholic screenwriter Marty (Colin Farrell) troubled by writer’s block; he’s got a title – Seven…

Robot & Frank

Gentle comedy about a retired burglar and his robotic friend

Jake Schreier's feature debut Robot & Frank successfully engages the head and the heart to emerge as one of the most charming independent films of the year. It's an enjoyable crime caper, an affecting meditation on old age as well as an amusing buddy…