Theft, betrayal, and rebuilding one’s life are the focus of Brett Harvey’s jaw-dropping documentary, “Funny Money: The Dane Cook Story”. Working hard to make a career, succeeding in becoming a big star, earning more money than you ever thought was possible, and then seeing it all ripped away. To lose your millions and to discover it was one of your closest family members who perpetrated such a Shakespearean treachery would crush the soul of even the strongest personality. For comedian Dane Cook, this unimaginable truth became both his destruction and his rebirth.

Between 2004 and 2008, Cook’s half-brother and business manager, Darryl McCauley, was found to have embezzled close to $12 million from the comedian. An unimaginable familial treason, in 2010, McCauley and his wife, Erika, pled guilty to embezzlement, larceny, and forgery. Erika was sentenced to three years in prison, while her husband earned six years behind bars and was ordered to pay full restitution.

Perhaps the brothers could have reconnected and, once the money was paid back, maybe there was a bridge to reconciliation. Of course, Darryl could never again be Dane’s manager, but maybe the two could be brothers again.

This dream would never come to fruition, as McCauley finished his prison sentence and then vanished.

Erika agreed to do an on-camera interview, where she continued to declare her innocence, casting herself as the “unsuspecting wife.” To Cook, the filmmakers, and the audience, Erika was less than convincing. The comedian (along with other interviewees) states how he is sure she was “a willing participant.”

“Funny Money: The Dane Cook Story’ isn’t so much an in-depth dive into the comic’s mind and career. Director Harvey gives a brief glimpse of the struggle and almost meteoric rise that came through Cook’s determination to succeed. The segments are just enough for the audience to understand both Cook as a performer and the weight of the film’s actual subject matter.

The documentary interviews many in Dane Cook’s circle, and the pieces that come together are indisputable. Everyone believes both McCauley and Eriks are guilty. Cook will forever be hurt and angry by what happened. It is to his credit how he can laugh about all that has transpired. Of course, Dane Cook is a comedian, and perhaps making fun of it for the cameras is how he deals with pain. Whatever the case, the man has persevered. Knowing he would never get answers, the comedian hit the road once again, playing anywhere that would have him. This barrage of gigs had a purpose. Darryl stole the millions, but never paid any taxes. Ergo, Cook owed a few million to the I.R.S. The betrayal seemed endless.

After everything his brother did to him, after the destruction of his career, and the loss of everything he achieved through decades of hard work, Cook offers to forget the repayment of the millions in stolen money if his brother would sit down with him and admit to everything. The brother is long gone, and Erika only paints herself more guilty with every ill-advised word that comes out of her mouth. Dane Cook is left to pick up the pieces and live with a career currently under reconstruction.

“Funny Money: The Dane Cook Story” is both a true crime doc and an examination of one man’s resilience after losing it all at the hands of a trusted family member. Whatever one thinks of Cook’s comedy, there is no doubt that Brett Harvey’s sharply directed and involving film will earn the audience’s sympathies.

There is certainly nothing funny regarding what happened, but Dane Cook keeps smiling. The comedian is not a phoenix who rose from the ashes, but a focused man with a broken heart who refuses to allow betrayal to break him.