This one irritated me from the outset, really. It was partly because of the title. What we have here is a bunch of Hollywood comedians playing comedians (ooh, clever! Life imitating art eh?) but actually exposing the fact that stand-up comedians are insecure, whiney and ruthlessly ambitious to the point of screwing over their friends on a regular basis. This is a risky strategy on the part of the director - apparently the irony of having Adam Sandler "playing" a comedian who's not even slightly funny and is in reality an arrogant, unsympathetic arse has been lost on all concerned.
It's hard in this film to know how you're supposed to feel. It's poorly structured, too long and Apatow seems to think he's being some kind of directorial maverick by not having a single sympathetic character in there. I think you're supposed to like Seth Rogen, but you get the impression that he's slow on the uptake rather than a nice guy lacking in the vices that characterise the others - he has his moments of being just as shallow, insecure and untrustworthy as all the others. I also think you're supposed to find the jokes funny. They're not (deliberately not in places, accidentally not in others) and this is the problem - there's no reason to care about anyone or anything that happens to them.
So by the time Sandler's character George Simmons is staring at his own mortality, any element of this story that might be moving at all has already been wrung out. You find yourself watching completely dispassionately as he struggles to get to grips with what's happening to him and what he's done with his life. He's just too much of a bastard for the movie to have the charm of This is Spinal Tap, which is probably the closest reference to what it's aiming for.
The last part of the film shows Simmons trying to fix his empty life by pursuing the now unhappily married one-that-got-away. Again, it's hard to care about anyone in the scenario, sympathies are undermined all round. Maybe there's supposed to be something clever about the ending, some defying of expectations, but ultimately movies should take you on some kind of ride, and this is like sitting for two and a half hours in Apatow's car waiting for him to start the engine. This is ultimately my objection - despite being vain, weak, unpleasant and unfunny, Apatow still thinks Hollywood's comedians are worthy of my undivided attention. Ultimately, it's an arrogant film and that puts me off.
This was the 2-disc collector's edition of the DVD as well. I have to say I have never in my life seen a wider range of extras or been less tempted to investigate. "35 minutes of deleted scenes and classic stand-up!" If you deleted everything self-indulgent, smug or painfully unfunny from the movie you could really add to the bonus material.
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