The American remake, a scant three years after the British version, is tantamount to a summer-stock production in Cleveland, a black comedy made over into a black comedy, or more distinctly a dark comedy made over into an African-American comedy. Beyond the casting of Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, Regina Hall, Zoë Saldaña, Loretta Devine, Danny Glover, et al., it has been only sporadically African-Americanized in the script (“The catfish nuggets are to die for”), and it has been plain old Americanized mainly in the grossness of the toilet humor. Who could ever have foreseen that director Neil LaBute, the contemporary cinema’s iciest misanthrope, would stoop to poop jokes to bring down the house? Among the few white faces in the crowd, dinky Peter Dinklage reprises with total authority his role from the original, sort of like a Broadway headliner re-upping for the road company, and James Marsden intrepidly negotiates the bumps and curves of a bad acid trip. (2010) — Duncan Shepherd
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