‘Game’ not as funny as it should be

Funny idea, not so funny movie. “Finishing the Game” is a faux documentary that looks like it might have been made in 1973, when the event it purports to chronicle really happened.

In ‘73, the awesome martial-arts star Bruce Lee died suddenly, having shot about 12 minutes of footage for his latest project. The film he was making, “Game of Death,” was completed with body doubles and look-alikes.

The idea of “Finishing the Game” is that the intrepid (or exploitative) filmmakers behind “Game of Death” must find the double to finish Lee’s scenes. So we watch the audition process and meet a few wannabe-Lees.

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This ought to be a rich source of humor, especially because there were many actors (invariably with names like Bruce Li) who scrambled to fill the void left in chopsocky pictures.

One of the characters in “Finishing the Game” is named Breeze Loo (played by Roger Fan), which is close enough. He, at least, has the advantage of being Chinese-American; some of the other auditioners include an Indian karate master and a white guy who declares some Asian ancestry.

The best material has to do with a former TV actor (Dustin Nguyen) whose claim to fame is having coined a popular catchphrase on a cop series: “I ain’t gonna do your laundry.”

The re-creations of this TV show are the sharpest thing in the movie, and James Franco, the “Spider-Man” star, does a nice cameo as Nguyen’s TV partner.

Unfortunately, such pitch-perfect lampoonery is scarce in this film. Director Justin Lin, who made a strong impact with his debut picture, “Better Luck Tomorrow,” does not seem to have an ear for this kind of comedy.

Lin says he had the idea for this film even before he made “Better Luck Tomorrow,” and it’s easy to see why it stuck with him. Surely there must be a story behind the bizarre circumstances of making “Game of Death.” But this isn’t it.

Even the outtakes at the end of the movie, which are supposed to be the funniest break-ups during shooting, aren’t actually funny. When that doesn’t work, you know you’ve got some problems.