Step Brothers

I still don’t know what possessed me to watch Step Brothers. I think it was the couple of lines from the trailer that made me chuckle. Will Ferrell is burying John C Reilly in the front yard. Reilly whimpers, “Dad’s gonna wonder where I am!” Ferrell responds confidently, “He’ll never know!” I loved the line readings. It wasn’t in the movie. Thanks to all the ad-libs and improvisation, many of the funny lines in the trailer don’t make it to the final film. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love improv. I do improv. In more recent comedies, however, I’m getting the feeling that improv is trumping the actual storyline which leads to a messy, messy film full of funny lines but not much substance.

When it comes to movies, I’m usually good at suspending my disbelief. They saved Harvey Dent’s suit after it half-burned in the big explosion? Sure. Indiana Jones can survive an atomic bomb blast without any hearing impairment, radiation or physical pain? Why not? These two step brothers are forty years old and still live with their parents? Bullshit. The other two films are flights of fancy, Step Brothers is supposed to be real life. The two brothers are pushing forty but act like ten year olds with their bunk-bed construction, punching pumpkins and general cluelessness. Now if this behaviour was constant, you could maybe chalk it up to some mental disability. But wait, they also lace their dialogue with profanity that is more teenager-style, and enjoy ‘cooler’ things like drum sets and shark week. There’s no consistency. I’m also thinking that with all the television they watch, they must have seen what a successful job interview looks like at least once in their lifetime.

Now I will admit that it looks like Ferrell and Reilly are having a lot of fun. (The same kind of fun they had in their 'Green Team' sketch on funnyordie.com.) And there are definitely some laugh-out-loud moments. But there are a lot of dragged out lameness to get to the funny parts. There’s this great opera singing scene but it takes about fifteen minutes to get there in order for it to pay off. I hate to say this, because it seems to mostly apply to Will Ferrell’s work, but this movie would work so much better as shorter sketches on Saturday Night Live. The movie doesn’t gel.

I guess what disappoints me most is that Will Ferrell is better than this. He is great at making pompous characters who are a little slow and have no internal censor. Look at Ron Burgundy or Ricky Bobby. These are fun, fully fleshed out characters. Ferrell’s Brennan Huff is just plain annoying (not Adam Sandler’s Little Nicky annoying but still). Brennan is just loud and obnoxious. While I cared about Ron Burgundy and Ricky Bobby when tragedy befell them, I didn’t care one iota about the demise of Brennan or Reilly’s Dale. They get what they deserve. Ferrell needs to take a break. He needs to regain his Stranger Than Fiction status. I hear they are considering an Anchorman sequel that takes place in the eighties. That would work too. Ferrell is so much better than this. And John C Reilly? We get it, you can do comedy. I liked his stuff in Walk Hard and Ricky Bobby, but go back to smarter roles like your work in Chicago and Magnolia; those lovable schlubs who are Oscar contenders.

So yeah, I’m not recommending Step Brothers. Maybe watch it on TBS, when it comes out, if you want to see a couple of funny lines without paying for it. And one more thing concerning the male nudity in this film: in Forgetting Sarah Marshall – funny, in Step Brothers – not funny and unnecessary. Watch this film at your own risk of becoming stupider.