Funny People is certainly ambitious, perhaps Judd Apatow’s most ambitious project yet as either a producer or a filmmaker. It’s not easy mixing death and laughs, though comedy writers always at some point try, but I don’t think that story is Funny People’s weakest link. The movie stars Adam Sandler as a not quite pastiche of himself, though it could certainly be seen as such. He’s George Simmons, a man that made his reputation as a stand-up before he launched to comedy super-stardom in a series of increasingly banal films like “Mer-Man” and “Re-Do.” One speaks for itself, while other is basically an adult Sandler head on a baby’s body.

Well I can see why Simmons is such a grand success. Of course the notion of “mer-men” as already been played as a gag and Zoolander, and as for that “Re-Do” thing, I’m pretty sure the Wayans tried that shtick in Little Man a few years back. But that’s okay. I can buy that these movies would be box office successes, at least almost as much as the popular TV sitcom “Yo Teach” about a hip, twentysomething teacher at an inner city high school. “Yo Teach” stars Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman), who’s a roommate of Ira Wright (Seth Rogen), a down-on-his-luck stand-up hoping for his big break. Ira’s break comes when Simmons, attempting a stand-up resurgence, hires him to write a few jokes, which leads to a full-time gig as Simmons personal assistant.

As you’re undoubtedly aware though, the thing is that Simmons is dying. He has some kind of rare blood disease that’s “Leukemia-like” and although he’s on experimental medication, there’s only an eight per cent chance of it working. Simmons experiences a kind of catharsis as he tries desperately to avoid thoughts of dying by putting his affairs in order, which is an odd reaction I suppose but it serves to reinforce the fact that Simmons basically has no one aside from his staff, and his Hollywood friends, and now Ira. But while Apatow’s managed to face the depressing material of impending death with a kind chin-up attitude, I think it was a cop-out giving Simmons a sort-of cancer. If there’s one thing that can be said for My Sister’s Keeper it’s that it showed sickness for all its ugliness.

But I guess this isn’t that kind of movie either. And while Sandler is certainly up to the job performance-wise speaking, for some reason he comes across as bored rather than dejected. There is something in teaming up Sandler (the old guard) with Rogen (the new guard) because they do play well off each other. Schwartzman with Jonah Hill, who plays Ira’s other successful roommate Leo, adds some levity too, but for some reason I found Hill’s whiney huckster routine a little more draining than usual. Overall, I think that the cast could have been sharper because it’s like they’re trying to let the script speak for itself rather than take material and pump it up with some humanity. Eric Bana gets the short end of the stick by playing the most stereotypical Aussie since Crocodile Dundee.

I also found other areas of Funny People draining. The product placement for example, and counted along those lines I think can be the celebrity cameos, of which there are many. Simmons takes Ira’s jokes to a MySpace party of some sort where James Taylor is playing, and I was thinking, “My Space? Really? Is this 2005?” Although Taylor did deliver one of the film’s funniest cameos – the other being an altercation between Eminem and Ray Romano – I was still kind of taken by the garishness of the scene and the dated feeling of the reference. Normally, I consider whining about product placement as nitpicking, but here it just sticks out like a sore thumb.

The script’s decent, the actor’s are decent, but when it comes to a film from Judd Apatow, we expect something more than average. Could the filmmaker’s ambitions have gotten away from him on this one? Perhaps, certainly the strains have been their in other recent Apatow productions, as if the brain trust has found themselves being stretched too thin in the wake of success. Or perhaps I’m reading too much into it, and Funny People merely represents some kind of adjustment because no one can fly so high for so long. Cut three-quarters of an hour and some awkwardly unfunny conflicts and I think the movie would have been much tighter. Not a bad movie, but certainly not a good one, not to mention mis-titled.