Review Of The Year - Comedies

Everyone loves a good comedy film.

Romantic, gross out or just plain silly comedy films have always been a feature of the movie theatres and a steady supply is always dripping into the multiplexes.

So, Femalefirst takes a look back at what made us laugh throughout the year

Number 1 – The Hangover

Coming from nowhere, this became one of 2009’s greatest successes and became a new standard in the world of comedy.

Starring Bradley Cooper (He’s Just Not That Into You), The Hangover told the tale of four guys on a stag party in Las Vegas having a bit of a wild night. A baby in the closet, a tiger in the bathroom and a missing groom are amongst the questions asked by the men with headaches.

Dealing with an effeminate gangster, a stripper who drunkenly married one of their troupe and Mike Tyson, they have to track down their missing man before his wedding in two days.

With a brilliant, anarchic sense of humour, alongside brilliant visual jokes and brilliant, lovable characters that bounce naturally off each other. With no such thing as a dull moment, The Hangover was easily the best comedy of 2009.

We can look forward to even more from the guys in two years time, as Warner Brothers has given a green light to a possible sequel.

Number 2 – The Proposal

In The Proposal, Sandra Bullock plays Margaret Tate, a fire-breathing editor in chief of a New York publishing house. After being told that she is to be deported back to Canada, she blackmails her long suffering assistant Andrew, played by Ryan Reynolds (Definitely Maybe) to keep her in the country.

Having to convince the immigration service that they’re not committing fraud, Andrew is made to take Margaret with him to his grandmother’s 90th birthday party and try and convince the family that they’re for real.

This, along side drama The Blind Side, which has been taking the US by storm, has seen yet another reboot in the extraordinary career of Sandra Bullock. With a Golden Globe nomination for both, she seems to be getting her career right back on track.

Both she and Reynolds are brilliant throughout, bringing a great chemistry to screen that few of these movies can match.

Although going down the familiar ‘they don’t get along at first’ style of rom-com, The Proposal is by far the most fun entry into the field for some time, namely due to the cracking turns by both Bullock and Reynolds, along with the fabulous Betty White as Andrew’s grandmother.

Number 3 – Zombieland

Right, bear with us here. Yes, zombies aren’t the most fun and frivolous things in the world, but Zombieland, in spite of all the undead running around, this is a mad cap comedy, through and through.

Starring Jesse Eisenburg (Adventureland) Emma Stone (Superbad) and Woody Harrelson as a group of survivors travelling towards a theme park for young Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), Zombieland is possibly one of the most original comedies in years.

Despite great performance Harrelson steals the show as natural ‘zombie-killer’ Tellahasse. As a cowboy hat wearing gun nut with an unnatural longing for Twinkies, a strange cream sponge dessert, and will go to any lengths to try and get his hands on them, he brings just a little bit of brilliant chaos to every scene.

Also, there is a cameo performance right in the middle of the film that takes it to just the next level of the weirdness, that will have you in stitches. We don’t want to spoil it for you by telling you who it is though.

The real beauty to Zombieland is the delicate relationship between Eisenburg and Stone, with a cute little romance between them bringing tenderness to what could have been just another wacky movie and makes it so much more.


Number 4 – Bruno

The return of comedian Sasha Baron Cohen to our cinemas after the brilliantly crude Borat of three years ago had him take on the fashion world as Bruno.

His latest alter ego: a gay Austrian TV fashion reporter, sets about clearing his name and making it big in the USA, after ruining Milan Fashion Week single handed by crashing onto the catwalk while stuck to a curtain in a suit made entirely out of Velcro.
Cohen, in his usual way, gets his laughs from shock value, and in this respect doesn’t disappoint. With sketches such as going camping with a bunch of rednecks, buying an African baby and, the biggest and best, staging a cage fight under the name of Straight Dave only to give the crowd something they really weren’t wanting, causing a riot.

Although Bruno tried to recreate the ‘mockumentary’ style of Borat, it felt far too staged to pull this off and maybe showed that Sasha Baron Cohen is, as some may have feared, a comedy writer with a very small range.

On occasions though, Bruno just has enough to make you not care about the little things and loose your sense of decency.

That brings to a close our look throughout this year’s best comedies, although an honourable mention has to go out to 500 Days of Summer, as it wasn’t quite funny enough to classify on the comedies list, but works a great, clever romantic drama and is well worth checking out.

With plenty to look forward to in the New Year as well, it seems as if the laugh tank is no where near empty yet.


FemaleFirst  Cameron Smith