"Brick" doesn't try to match that force -- it's a parody, after all, and some of it is very funny. (One of the funniest moments involves the underworld kingpin's cheerful mother.) But its arcane slang, which is meant to be mannered, grows mannered in unintended, off-putting ways, and the performances, though amusing, can be painfully short on energy.

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Most comedy writers will freely admit that it is much, much harder to write something that is very funny, yet clean.

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It is genuinely funny, brilliantly edited and very feelgood.

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Sorry, all very common advice, but the funny thing is very few people follow it.

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"I don't think it's very abstract at all, which is very funny, " she says.

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"It's a very funny, very well made, mass-market comedy, which is well scripted and has an exotic location, " said Patrick Frater, chief executive of Film Business Asia.

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And it's a very sort of comedic look at the absurdities of the film business, which is just funny to watch while you're sitting amid said film business.

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If that sounds a funny sort of privatisation, it is all the funnier because seemingly nobody, unless this is a very well-kept official secret, knows how the savings bank is going to operate from 2007 onwards, even while it is still under state management.

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