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It's not something new, that comedians (or clowns for that matter), have a sad lonely side to them. This is being explored to quite the big degree here. With an excellent cast. But all starts off with something I don't like at all: Prank calls. Never found them funny and only the calls where they try to sell something to you seem worse.

Having said that, this is only the beginning and is supposed to be a character beat. Now Sandler is playing a comedian, but he can draw from personal experiences. Others here play themselves (no pun intended). Overall this has an amazing cast. I watched the extended cut, which adds more minutes to an already long movie. But I didn't mind. It is predictable, but it is also fun. The drama works and it showcases that Sandler can do more than just being silly. I understand that it's still what most of his fans want to see him in - and not dramas like this. It's unfortunate

I watched this around the time it first became available to rent. It was very forgettable at the time. I watched it thinking it was going to be "funny." But 12 years later it's more relatable to me and understandable, so the humor stands out a lot more than I remember.

I'll admit I know this wasn't a typical Sandler movie as the near death experience added a bit of drama, and at first most of the characters were very likable and funny. Sandler kind of comes off as an ass at the beginning but then gets a little more likable as the movie progresses. There were many times where I laughed out loud at the jokes they made, and Sandler bantering Rogan was pretty hilarious. I thought to myself "Okay, this is cute I like it." BUT THEN! After the hour and a half mark hit, it's like the director said "Hey let's throw as much useless crap on the end of this and hope it still stays funny!" WHAT?! Why did Sandler have to go rehash stuff with his ex wife, why did he run around like a pussy for almost an hour and still not get the girl, and why did this movie drag on in no apparent direction for no apparent reason? After Sandler found out he was cured, that where is should've ended, right there and it would've been decent, but noooo! The director decides to torture us for almost another hour on random and unfunny garbage. After the first hour and a half, I started to really hate Sandler and Rogan's characters, they just came off as really annoying. So all in all the first hour and a half was funny, witty, and mostly cute, but after that just turn it off, you'll be glad you did!

Considering Judd Apatow's previous work most people will probably see Funny People expecting a comedy.This isn't the case at all. The film is clearly a drama even though it centers around stand up comedy.George (Adam Slander) is a very successful, famous and rich comedian who learns that he has a blood disorder similar to leukemia and he'll most likely die in a short amount of time. Ira (Seth Rogen) is a struggling up-and-coming stand up comedian who works at a deli.One night George takes notice of Ira and hires him as his personal assistant. Ira gets exited with this new chance and accepts it right away.Besides being an assistant Ira soon becomes George's only friend. Later on the experimental medicine that was given to George by the doctors ends up working and George defeats the disease. With a second chance in life, George tries to reconnect with the love of his life and takes Ira along for the ride. Both of them end up learning some lessons. This is not a bad film, and I think the premise is great, the problem here is that the movie is very,very uneven.The direction of the film changes a few times, sometimes it feels like its going on the right direction and sometimes it just falls flat.As I said, this is more a drama then a comedy, but the writing is what you usually see in the late genre; the characters are two dimensional and poorly written, specially the main character George who towards the end of the movie seems like a completely different person. The acting was a big problem for me as well. Seth Rogen's acting here, lets be honest, it is atrocious, he doesn't seem comfortable at all and delivers his lines in a very awkward way (and I didn't mind him at all in Zack And Miri Make A Porno for instance) and Eric Bana has a serious case of overacting. All in all, it's a very uneven film but entertaining nonetheless and a good change of pace for Adam Sandler.

6/10

One of the major rules people should have learned about movies is this: No matter how specific the title is, it may not be what you thought it was going in.

Judd Apatow had two previous titles, both being specific in title, with "The 40 Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up". So when you see a movie with a title like "Funny People", you will probably expect a very funny movie; This wouldn't be necessarily incorrect, but misleading: There are funny people in this movie, it is just not a movie that is truly as funny as the title would lead you to believe.

Adam Sandler as George is surely the highlight of this movie, We think we will see Adam playing a serious role, and for the most part, he does. His character, dying from a rare blood disease, is brought up almost immediately, so the movie moves right away.

George decides to go back to the stage after making a handful of truly bad movies (An obvious look back at Adam's acting career) and bombs on stage, but Ira, played by Seth Rogen in a different kind of role, gets some big laughs. George hires Ira to help him write jokes, and a different kind of friendship, but a friendship nonetheless, develops.

George soon gets into touch with an old girlfriend, played by Leslie Mann, Director Apatow's Wife, and the two begin to realize how much they have both changed. She has a husband (Eric Bana, in a truly funny role) and two kids (Iris and Maude, Mann and Apatow's real life children), while George lives a life less fulfilling.

The movie takes a real backseat to conventional rules of movies; There is maybe, at a maximum, of two real clichés in this movie, one mentioned in this review already, and the other for good measure.

The movie feels a little long winded, running at nearly 2 and half hours, and the characters are sad, but interesting. Seeing Adam playing a shadow of himself is certainly a depressing site, and Rogen doing all he can for the man that he admires, since he was a kid, no less, is even better, proving that Rogen isn't a one trick pony, hopefully making this a bit more noticeable for his performance in The Green Hornet next year.

The movie also has some great performances from Jason Schwartzman as an actor starring in a horrible television sitcom and Jonah Hill as a competing comedy performer.

But there has to be a reason why this movie is ranked so low, and it could almost be said of the running time, but its coming right back to my first paragraph about ironic titles in movies. I suspected a laugh riot, and got mere chuckles. The stand up is hard to enjoy, being very oriented in genitalia humor and sex jokes doesn't make it really funny, just repetitive.

And I will be honest: I didn't pay attention to the title business and felt rather disappointed. This is a movie not sitting at the dinner table with all the Apatow produced movies of the last three or four years; like George, he's sitting at his own table, not quite like everyone else.

Perhaps now that I've seen the movie for what it truly is, a drama with some funny parts in it, I can now go back and see if maybe I can look at it any differently.

Here is an Apatow film different from anything he's directed, written or produced lately, and deserves to be seen at least once, and while people will see this and perhaps, not laugh as hard, here is hoping Apatow doesn't lose face and give up on this kind of writing. Apatow can make characters more like real people, and he needs to consider maybe doing a drama a little more than once or twice, now that he has done it. If he doesn't, he might end up like most writer-directors, who just get tired after awhile, instead of trying out different genres of film, regardless of what his "Fans" might say anyway.

7 out of 10.