Director: Chris D’Arienzo
Screenplay: Chris D’Arienzo, Frank Turner Hollon (book)
Producers: Mickey Barold, Stone Douglass, Eric Kopeloff, Matt Weaver
Starring: Patrick Wilson, Judy Greer, Jean Smart, Billy Dee Williams, Cybill Shepherd, Emily Procter, Malcolm McDowell, Chloë Sevigny
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 94 min.

(2/5)

I’m sure that Frank Turner Hollon’s book from which Barry Munday is based is very funny and I don’t doubt that writer/director Chris D’Arienzo, a Tony award nominee currently working on adapting his musical “Rock of Ages” to the big screen, is also a pretty funny guy but the combination of two funny sources doesn’t always deliver comedic gold and such is the case here.

The concept isn’t even particularly funny or, for that matter, new. Barry is a sex fiend who’ll pretty much bang anything with boobs, often not even remembering the night (or person) of play. While hitting on a teenager at the local movie theatre, he’s accosted by her father who slams him in the crotch with a trumpet. The next thing he knows, Barry’s in the hospital being told by his mother that he’s lost his testicles.

OK. So maybe that’s a tiny bit funny but more than anything, it’s sort of sad and pathetic.

Just when life couldn’t get any worse, Barry is served with legal papers advising that he has fathered a child. Initially, this pisses him off but after consideration of the fact that he’ll never father any other children, he gets involved with the mother and his child to be. From the series of events that follows, this is also where the comedy (or drama) is really supposed to kick into high gear. Only, it never happens.

Barry Monday certainly has potential to be funny and heck, in some instances it almost gets there. A slightly bulgy and unattractive Patrick Wilson takes on the lead role of sex hungry single man who turns into slightly less irritating family man. He’s fine but I didn’t really buy Wilson as the sex hungry guy; he’s much better as a sexually repressed man taking advantage of little girls or as an emasculated male. There’s Ginger, the pregnant woman played by the great Judy Greer who comes across as a pathetic, needy woman, Chloë Sevigny, her sister who moonlights on occasion as a stripper, Ginger’s parents played as slight eccentrics by Cybill Shepherd and Malcolm McDowell and the very funny Jean Smart who blends into the background as Barry’s mom. Definitely lots of potential but it’s all so bland and the jokes fall so flat that the movie mostly just elicits comments of “What on earth were they thinking?” and “Is it almost over?”

It’s a pretty sordid affair. Moments that should be funny fall flat, jokes miss their marks, the timing is non-existent and actors who are generally likeable (even in bad films) are gut churningly awful. The major problem with this movie is that there’s no emotional connection to any of the characters because none of them feel like real people; they’re all far too quirky and one dimensional and outside of Barry’s mom who seems to have a bit of backstory and growth as a character, everyone else, including Barry, just feel like caricatures; a real problem if your story relies on the connection between the audience and the characters on screen.

I didn’t enjoy Barry Munday. It’s simply not a funny movie that tries much too hard to hit home bad jokes. There was one moment, when Barry’s mom sets him up to partake in a support group for individuals who have suffered through genital trauma, that is truly funny but it’s far too short and feels a bit too crude for the material D’Arienzo shells out in the rest of the movie. It’s out of place, a good joke amidst a river of bad ones. Do yourself a favour and skip this one.

Barry Munday has been available on DVD and Blu-Ray since May 10th.

DVD Extras: The extra’s aren’t much to write home about. They include a number of deleted scenes with commentary, a few outtakes, a somewhat amusing blooper reel and a pretty amusing “Men’s” Group PSA. There DVD also includes a commentary track with director Chris D’Arienzo and stars Patrick Wilson and Judy Greer. Not sure if it’s any good; I could barely get through the movie and was in no mood to sit through it again for the commentary.