The Misfortunates is often very funny, and the rolling remember-when vignettes trump the typical low-country wild-hairy-man sideshows.

If Ken Loach and Roberto Benigni went into a bar, drank themselves into a stupor and emerged the next morning with a screenplay, it might look a lot like The Misfortunates.

The Misfortunates is a bleak comedy that's not as funny or grim as it needs to be.

It's only when the film needs to get serious... that it comes up a little short.