Funny Money (2005)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Feature: C-

 

 

In his best Vacation style, Chevy Chase tries to do another wacky comedy with Leslie Grief’s Funny Money, a mistaken identity would-be comedy where an accountant (Chase) accidentally grabs the wrong briefcase and winds up having $1 Million of someone else’s cash, which he and his wife Carol (Penelope Ann Miller) quickly decide to spend, until someone the police thinks is him turns up dead and they may be the hunted next.

 

Though it has boldly crass, angry humor that could have worked, all we get is formula, wasting a cast that also includes Armand Assante, Robert Loggia, Christopher McDonald and Zoltan Butuc.  Based on a British play, this obviously translated badly, but this ultimately fails all around because it is not savvy enough to make this work and the script dooms all from the start.  Comic timing is poor and this worked much better with more cases when it was called What’s Up Doc? back in 1972.  See that instead.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is soft in ways that are surprising considering the nice use of color here and there, but this may have been shot in an older digital HD format.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has no surrounds and the case never claims it, making for a combination that is watchable at best.  Extras include stills and three featurettes including a making of piece.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo