Funny Money
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brian Wortz on October 1st, 2007
Not funny. Don’t spend your money. Do you really need to know anything more? Funny Money is an unfortunate return to the screen by Chevy Chase. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not unfortunate that Chase returns to the screen, just that the final product is such a mess. Based on a hit London play, Funny Money also stars Robert Loggia, Armand Assante, Christoper McDonald, and Penelope Ann Miller. Not a bad cast you might be thinking. I would agree, the talent is there, but the performances vary from over the top (Miller) to phoned-in (Assante). Even Chase himself just seems happy to be getting paid for this one.
The story revolves around Henry Perkins (Chase) who lives a mundane life. By accident, he exchanges briefcases (never heard that one before) with someone on a subway, and ends up with a briefcase filled with 5 million dollars. Henry hurries home to his wife Carol(Miller), tells her to pack her bags because they are taking the money and running.
In the meantime Carol, always complaining that Henry is never spontaneous enough, has planned a dinner party and has big news of her own big break with her art. Assante shows up as cop questioning the couple and they must keep up appearances through the dinner. Problem I found is that the script just isn’t funny. I can only imagine that the performances on stage are what sold the show to a live audience. Someone like Robert Altman might have pulled this one off on film, but he probably would have looked for better material in the beginning.
It would be one thing if it were just poor performances that ruin the film, but whole film feels extremely uninspired, which is a shame. Shot in Romania with what appears to be stock footage of New York City tacked on, everything reeks of cheap sitcom. The majority of the film takes place in one household, mimicking a one set stage show and just has a completely fake feel to it. While I have no qualms about trying to recreate the feel of the stage show, it just doesn’t work here.
Video
Low-budget.
The letterboxed MPEG-2 presentation is OK, but has a sometimes soft and often washed out look. Some scenes were noisy, but mostly just mediocre looking overall. Colors were bland and details were evident when in focus. Not a bad transfer per se, but bad source material.
Audio
Again, mediocre at best. The Dolby Digital stereo track provided clarity in the dialog, but it’s still just stereo sound. Not that anything more was really needed here.
Features
For all practical purposes, I’d call this a barebones disc. The features included are “All About the Money” which is basically a trailer with some tacked on cast and director comments, and “Looking for Comedy in Romania” which briefy discusses the hardships of the shoot. Nothing notable or worthwhile here.
Overall
This just isn’t a good movie. I still have faith that Chevy can return to his glory days of comedy, but he needs a better vehicle than this. As for the rest of the cast, I’m not sure I have quite as much faith for the rest of them.
