OxfordPress.com

By CHRIS VOGNAR
Dallas Morning News

It doesn't hurt that the star, Eddie Griffin (last seen preserving his orange soda in "Undercover Brother"), is an effortlessly funny man. But in this case the boldest laughs come far from the stage, when the spry, strutting performer takes the audience to a series of impromptu family gatherings. It has been said that the best comedians leave their lives bare, but Griffin takes that premise to self-revealing extremes.

We're not sure what to expect when Griffin shows up to see various family members in his hometown of Kansas City, Kan. But within moments it's clear that Griffin's upbringing was a far cry from "Ozzie and Harriet" -- or "Good Times," for that matter. Cutting between his concert performance and "meet the kin" vignettes, "DysFunKtional Family" provides the rare opportunity to sample a comic's material and hang out with the folks who inadvertently shaped it. And beneath the bawdy give-and-take, it also proffers a valuable life lesson: families come in all shapes, sizes and tenors.

One of Griffin's uncles is a porn aficionado, and he has the photo albums to prove it. Another has had what the rapper Jay-Z might call a "hard-knock life" -- a former junkie and pimp, he doesn't want younger family members to follow in his footsteps. Then there's Mom, a strong-willed woman who knew how to lay down the law. As we see her in the audience, laughing at jokes about her own iron hand, it's hard not to think about the Bernie Mac school of rough-and-ready child discipline.

The only thing wrong with these bits is that there aren't enough of them. Griffin's material is solid -- the sharpest material centers on a relative reprieve given black folks in the wake of 9/11, when Arabs became the bigotry target du jour. But a fair amount of Griffin's performance feels like a raunchier rehash on the white people-black people observations polished to a sheen by the comedian's idol, Richard Pryor. Griffin has been at it for a while, but he often comes off as a man funnier than the bulk of his onstage routine.

But "DysFunKtional Family" still feels fresher than any recent comedy concert film, simply because it's doing something different. We live in an age of narcissism and instant fame, but "DysFunKtional Family," like "The Osbournes" before it, feels genuine at its core. What's more, it feels inclusive. This is my crazy family, Griffin seems to say. If you don't like 'em, that's your problem.