Review of Bernie (2012) by Gavin M — 15 Jan 2015

This was actually a pretty good movie. Jack Black is surprisingly good as the title character himself Bernie an assistant funeral director in Texas who befriends an elderly nasty woman who just lost her husband played by Shirley McLaine who does a superb job as well.

But once he befriends her a lot of suspicion goes around the Texas town where the movie takes place as people begin to wonder why Bernie has befriended this woman who has absolutely no heart what so ever and is doing pretty much everything with her.

They go on vacation together, they go grocery shopping, even when they vacation together they stay in the same room together! But once Shirley McClaine's character begins to get protective of Jack Black and pretty keeps him all to herself allowing him to do nothing that entertains Black's character in anyway unless it has to do with McClaine's character, Jack Black begins to feel trapped and when they are suddenly suppose to run an errand together Black suddenly shoots McClaine in the back several times with an armadillo gun.

Realizing what he has does Jack Black panics and prays for god to tell him to do the right thing which means he ends up tossing her body in a freezer in her garage till he finds the right time to give her a proper burial in the backyard.

But Jack Black suspiciously plays it cool and talks to everyone in town including her relatives as if she is still alive, until finally her relatives who she has not spoken too in years, grow even more suspicious and bring the police into the matter.

When the police discover her body in the freezer in her garage where Black placed her, he is then arrested and put on trial for murder. Enter Matthew McConaughey who does a fabulous job as the prosecutor who is out to see Jack Black's character rots in jail for his crime.

McConaughey who is a Texas native, plays this character to the bone which makes feel great to see him back on his A game and bringing in one awesome performance after another in movies like "Dallas Buyer Club," the HBO show "True Detective," and the small role he had in Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street," which literally brings Matthew McConaughey a living movie star again and he definitely earns the title as nobody has reinvented themselves as McConaughey has lately with all the awesome performances he's been delivering lately.

Director Richard Linklater who also directed the oscar nominated front runner "Boyhood" which I am still anxious to see really deserves most the credit here because this could have easily just been another black comedy if it were put in the wrong hands, but in some ways it is, but it's the performances by the actors and some of the people playing the Texas townspeople themselves that give a lot of insight to Jack Black's character that make this black comedy worth watching.