Flypaper (2011/IFC/MPI Blu-ray)/Our Idiot Brother (2011/Weinstein/Anchor Bay Blu-ray)/Three Amigos! (1986/HBO Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B-/B-/C+     Sound: B/B-/C+     Extras: C/C-/C+     Films: C/C-/C+

 

 

What is funny?  That is a question comedy films always try to answer and most fail to do.  Here are three examples on how and why they do.

 

 

Rob Minkoff’s Flypaper (2011) wants to be a heist comedy, but even with casting that includes Patrick Dempsey, Ashley Judd, Tim Blake Nelson, Jeffrey Tambor, Mekhi Phifer and Pruitt Taylor Vince among those here, the set-up of two groups trying to rob the same bank at the same time is never convincing, is badly scripted (who talks like this?) and thinks acting funny is being funny.  That’s a shame because if the makers understood anything about what they were doing, this could have worked, even if it was not a sophisticated version of this kind of story, especially when so many people here are so watchable.  This could not even put a patch on Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks.  See it at your own risk.  Extras include interviews and a trailer.

 

 

Even worse is Music Video director Jesse Peretz’s Our Idiot Brother (2011) with Paul (‘supposedly funny just by showing up’) Rudd as a stoner-type organic farmer brother lands up getting thrown off his own farm and needs the help of his three sisters, played by Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel and Emily Mortimer, all of whom I like.  Unfortunately, the screenplay by Evgenia Peretz and David Schisgall is flat, boring, does not know what it wants to be, wants to do and most importantly, is never funny.  I did not laugh once and the title is condescending if anything, even suggesting a comedy about a sibling with mental retardation, but that is fortunately not what we get here.

 

I actually like some of the clips Peretz has directed, but it is obvious narrative filmmaking is not for him if this is what he is going to make.  Extras include a Making Of featurette, feature length audio commentary by Peretz and Deleted & Extended Scenes.

 

 

Finally we have John Landis trying to spoof singing cowboy films decades late in Three Amigos! (1986) with Steve Martin, Martin Short and (when he was funny more often) Chevy Chase.  It was not a big hit, but has remained a moderate favorite for a select group of fans who find it funnier than I do.  Not politically correct, yet a counter-culture product, the trio think they are going to play their music for big money when they are really being put in the middle of something much more potentially fatal in Mexico.

 

If you like the set-up, you might find it funny, but it never becomes more than a one or two joke film.  At least it has some comic energy that stops it from being a total dud and I have seen worse.  Extras include some interesting Deleted Scenes (20 minutes work) in HD that were just unearthed, vintage cast interviews and a 16-page booklet dubbed Amigos United that brings the leads and director together again with new text and photos.  Fans will love this one for its content.

 

 

The 1080p digital High Definition image transfers on the three Blu-rays barely deliver more than you would get from a great DVD with the 2.35 X 1 image on Flypaper and 1.78 X 1 image on Brother softer than they should be throughout and 1.85 X 1 on Amigos coming from a dated HD master.  All three also have DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes, but Flypaper by far has the best sound design, which is warm, consistent and smooth throughout.  Brother is more dialogue-based and puts more in the center channel than it should, plus it is on the quiet side.  Amigos shows its age trying to upgrade its sound from what was originally an old Dolby A-type analog theatrical release which includes why some of the sound has distortion to it.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo