Death at a Funeral (2007)

This is as near perfect as you can get for a quirky British comedy. It is all the right ingredients, a very believable setup, ordinary characters in an extraordinary situation, wit, and sarcasm.

Dean Craig who wrote this wonderful little hit, proves if he sets his mind to it he can produce comedic gold. However when he lets slip, what we end up, is something completely at the other end of the scale, with A Few Best Men. /shudders/

So the setup here is wonderfully simple. We have a funeral, of a beloved father, at the family home. It gets kicked off on the wrong foot when the under takers bring the wrong body. Once that gets resolved, we follow the stories of a number of interwoven characters and their problems.

Alan Tudyk plays the husband-to-be to the daughter, who accidentally takes a cocktail of acid thinking it was Valium to calm his nerves as he prepares to meet his father-in-law to be. His acting for this role alone should have won him a series of awards. It is absolutely brilliant.

Then we have

Peter Dinklage popping up, as the secret gay lover of the deceased. He is attempting to extort a little money or some photos get shown to the widow. So the males of the family attempt to quell this up rising, with much comedic results.

This movie never fails to raise a smile and always puts me in a good mood. This one falls under the watch-at-least-once-a-year bucket.

Though .. why Martin Lawrence felt he had to remake a year later it with an all-black cast for the American audience I have no idea. A lot got lost in translation with the remake.

#98 in the series