http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1321509/

Death at a funeral is a remake of a British film from 2007. This remake had a lot of potential since is directed by Neil Labute who directed the very good and underrated films The Shape of things, and In the company of men. He also directed The recent Wicker Man remake and we all know how that turned out. Even though he isn't known for remaking films well, Neil Labute is a very good director. Another reason this film has potential is it's cast. Keith David, Danny Glover, Chris Rock, and Luke Wilson are just a few of the stars in this film. They also cast the always fantastic Peter Dinklage, who was also in the original film. Sadly he is one of the only good parts of the film. People have complained about the change from an all white cast to a mostly black cast. While the change is a bit random, it also doesn't really matter. The race of an actor doesn't make a film any worse. Just like how Will Smith being black didn't make I am legend any worse, he actually made that piece of crap watchable. I don't like Martin Lawrence or Tracey Morgan, but they play their roles well. Danny Glover is by far the best part of the film though. He has great comic timing and his character is one of the film's best. James Marsden is also surprisingly good, though nowhere near as good as Alan Tudyk in the original. There are not really many changes made to this remake, so fans of the original can at least take comfort in that. The main problem with this film is how raunchy it is. I don't want to sound like a prude, but most of the jokes are delivered in a very over the top way that makes them almost painful to watch.

There is also the occasional racial joke thrown in for no reason. I like raunchy and dirty humor a lot, but here it just feels like a desperate attempt to get laughs. We never really get much insight into the characters. They have the occasional quirk that is meant to be funny and had the potential to make their characters more interesting but instead they are just flat and bland. There is a joke involving Tracy Morgan, Danny Glover, and feces that seems like it was written by a 12 year old. I was hoping this film would redeem Neil Labute after the disaster of Wicker Man, and the dissapointment of Lakeview Terrace. Every film he picks to direct recently seems to get worse and worse. The only time I get to see his talents is in his theater work. I saw a play he wrote recently that was a long monologue delivered by Ed harris and it was fantastic. I guess sometimes theater writers shouldn't make films. This film just piles on gross jokes constantly and in the end I feel numb to it because I don't care about any of the characters. The original film had the repressed emotional aspect that many British films have which worked because I got to like and understand all the characters. The remake seems more interesting in poor slapstick and gross out humor rather than any interesting characters. There is really nothing about this film that I can recommend. Maybe if you like gross humor you may like it, but I personally thought it was crap. I think it is even worse than The Wicker man. At least that film was fun to watch because it was unintentionally hilarious. This is just a poorly written film that wastes the talents of it's actors.

Overall I give it a 2 out of 10.