Funny Money

In January of 2007 this movie debuted in limited release on four screens, pulled in less than $2000, and hopefully those few people demanded a refund.

The director and the cast should have paniced sometime during filming when it became clear that the movie had only one joke, not amusing the first time around, but repeated over and over in every scene until I finally had to give up and switch away to a re-run of a Jeopardy game.

I liked Chevy Chase early in his career in TV and film, but his talents have dissipated even more quickly than his hair. He walks thru this film with no flair or style whatsoever. This has been all too common in some of his later efforts.

A sad waste of time for everyone involved, especially the viewer.

This is a decent movie. It definitely needed more locations in terms of, the airport, per say, but the film is decent in itself. Chevy Chase does a fine job, but Penelope Miller played her role a bit too hysterical for my taste. That's my take on it, but since it is a film adaptation of a farce comedy play, then I suggest you watch it yourself and make your own interpretations, as opinions vary, especially in this genre.

As a big fan of Chevy Chase I was interested to watch this film and as with most of the previous comments of this film I agree that it is certainly no "Fletch" or early "Vacation" film. But the point the most people seem to be missing is that this film is an adaptation of a farcical play written by (British Playwright) Ray Cooney and as such any attempt to dissect the plot is akin to dissecting the plot of an absurdist play (see "Rhinoceros" - starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel) - there is no point.

I think it is a reasonably good comedy although in general I find farce frustrating - namely for the reasons that annoyed most of the people who have criticised this film i.e. plot makes no sense, situations that could easily be dissolved are allowed to carry on out of control etc. Essentially this film has been created to resemble a stage production i.e small ensemble of core characters and a minimal number of sets.

I think the main characters are fairly strong and the dialogue and interaction between the characters is fast paced and funny although I do think it takes 20/30 minutes to get going.

As for the cast in general it was good and I actually thought that Penelope Ann Miller's character was excellent and she played it very well. Chevy Chase's character was also good and his interaction with both Armand Assante's and Christopher McDonald's characters brought the most laughs.

The bottom line is if you do not like farce you will probably not like this film. I also do think that in general any film that is an adaption of a stage play or remake is always destined to fail especially if the original was not American (a good example would be the remake of "The Ladykillers" - the big question being why did it need to be remade?)

With a title of "Funny Money" you ought to be able to work out that this is a film that doesn't take itself seriously ... and neither should you (take it seriously). If it helps, forget the fact that Chevy Chase is playing the lead (lots of big actors play direct-to-video films anyway), and see it more as a feature-length TV episode. There are belly-laughter moments. Just don't be expecting a different kind of film based on your experience of contemporary comedy film (for example gross-out humour). This film is less "slapstick", it is farce; that means the humor lies in lots of things happening very quickly continually upsetting the situation. The beginning of the film is not so hot but is necessary to set up the premise for the rest of the story. So basically, stick with it to when it gets to the main act.

Overview: A frivolous, fun and funny 97 minutes. Don't go expecting the scale and budget of a theatrical release.

Now Chevy Chase may not have done a classic comedy in this movie but this movie has got to be close to being a great comedy if not being a great comedy. The movie is about a guy who does the same boring thing every day and then mixes up a bag with a robber and finds himself rich. This movie has around 31 jokes in it and they are pretty much all funny and even though some are very hit and miss most of them are great enough to be classic Chevy Chase comedy. This movie is not quite as good as Fletch or Caddyshack but it is really quite good and overall I think that this movie is a really funny movie that deserves a high praise so I rate it 83% and under the reference of "watch at all costs" comedy.