Dysfunctional Step Brothers
By Dan
Hudak
 |
|
Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play childish, dysfunctional
siblings in Step Brothers. |
Here’s the
type of movie Step Brothers is: John C. Reilly tells Will
Ferrell not to touch his drum set. Ferrell defiantly touches it,
of course, and goes so far as to rub his sweaty scrotum all over
it. Reilly catches him, they fight, and soon the whole
neighborhood is watching Ferrell swing a bicycle at Reilly in
the front yard.
Odds are
you probably already know if you’re interested in seeing Step
Brothers, so the crowd that finds this sort of movie
hideously stupid can stop reading now — it’s that and then some.
But if you’re a fan of Ferrell and, after Semi-Pro, are
worried he may be slipping, it will comfort you to know this
movie is mostly a success, although not among his best films.
Ferrell
plays lifelong do-nothing Brennan, an immature goof whose mother
Nancy (Mary Steenburgen) has let him live at home for far too
long. Reilly’s Dale is a similar lifelong do-nothing, and as
fate would have it, Nancy marries Dale’s father, Robert (Richard
Jenkins), and soon the four are living together in Robert’s
house. The 40-something boys don’t get along at first, but find
a common enemy in Brennan’s far more successful younger brother,
Derek (Adam Scott). Apparently the idea of the boys getting
their own places and, you know, jobs, doesn’t seem to register,
probably because if it did there’d be no movie.
Director
Adam McKay’s (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby)
sole intention is to make us laugh, and laugh we do at jokes
that are good, bad and always silly. But be warned: Even if you
readily find humor in penis jokes (all you Zohan fans
know who you are), farts and the brazen stupidity of Ferrell,
you may tire a bit here. In fact, the jokes that miss reek of
desperation and trying too hard; having Brennan and Dale get
bullied by punk kids and forced to eat feces is a crude, tired
and unnecessary gimmick. The trick with comedy is that it needs
to seem effortless, which arguably makes it harder to do than
drama.
Part of
the inconsistency comes from Ferrell and Reilly’s performances.
At times, they are immature boys whining to their parents, and
at others, they’re vulgar adults going on job interviews and
planning to open their own company. Because the tone of the
humor changes so frequently the movie always feels slightly off;
it’s as if McKay and Ferrell (who wrote the script together)
knew the 12-year-old bit wouldn’t last, but didn’t have the
courage to abandon the idea when treating Brennan and Dale like
real adults with arrested development.
The movie
is rated “R” for a notable overuse of the F-word, which means
high school teenagers will now have to sneak in rather than do
things the right way if it were rated PG-13. Those who are older
will not have to do any sneaking around, but a teenage mindset
will certainly help.
