STEP BROTHERS
2008
Written by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, based on a story by Ferrell, McKay, and John C. Reilly
Directed by Adam McKay
So have you noticed the trend lately? The one where every other comedy is about man-children and their lives, which more often than not they make a total mess of because they just can't grow up? It's been led in large part by super-producer Judd Apatow's movies, but hey, that guy usually makes funny flicks, and ever since The 40 Year Old Virgin--which, despite some surface similarities, does not fit the trend at all--that's been the one everyone else has been trying to emulate. But everyone else, including Apatow himself at times, has forgotten what made that movie so winning: It had heart.
Unfortunately, Step Brothers, which was indeed produced by Apatow, has absolutely no heart whatsoever. If it did have a heart, the whining manbabies at its center would most likely have ripped it out and beaten each other with it. Which is what they do with everything else in their path. Shovels, drumsets, all manner of things are used to beat the living shit out of each other. They yell and scream and bitch and moan, which I know is the point ("Oh look, they're grown men! Acting just like five-year-olds! That's so cute!"), but it's a sorry fucking point.
I know this kind of movie, and especially this movie, does not merit analysis or anything, but the first thing that popped in my head while watching it was the fact that the premise on which the entire movie is hung makes no sense. We're supposed to believe that Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen, the movie's exasperated parents, meet after their separate divorces, fall madly in love, presumably date for some time since they have an elaborate wedding filled with guests...yet never go to each other's houses or introduce their sons until they've already tied the knot? What? Really? I mean, you could've probably made a funnier movie (though not much funnier) had the obstacle been the parents' burgeoning love, and the sons hate each other so much that they try to stop the wedding. But whatever. Instead, Brennan Huff (Will Ferrell) and Dale Doback (John C. Reilly), 40-year-olds who never moved out and seem never to have grasped any kind of concept about the outside world, have to live together once their parents get married.
At first they hate each other, and like I said, bash the fuck out of one another. Will Ferrell actually rubs his nuts all over Reilly's prized drumset. Unlike the dick nudity in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was funny because it highlighted the character's embarrassingly naked emotional state, this inclusion is just meant to elicit gasps. It's kind of funny just to see a guy's nuts up on the screen, especially when they're being used to defile a drumset, but then you realize the joke itself is the punchline. Which means there's essentially no pay-off. That's kind of the problem running throughout the entire movie. Most of the film's "hilarious" scenes are just there for their shock value, which wears off almost as soon as they hit the screen. Adam Scott, who plays Palek on the underrated HBO drama Tell Me You Love Me (and who has exposed his naughty bits more than once on that show), here appears as Ferrell's prick of a brother, Derek. Derek is absolutely insufferable, both to the rest of the characters as well as the viewer, and his wife (Kathryn Hahn) feels so suffocated by her life with him that she falls in horny, sexy love with Dale once Dale punches Derek's lights out. They "make sex" in a bathroom at one point, and what happens with a urinal right after is unexpected, to say the least. I won't ruin it, not because it's funny, but because all it's there for is to shock. So if you wanna know about some crazy shit with a urinal, be sure to see Step Brothers!
I cannot fathom why John C. Reilly has been drawn to this kind of dreck lately. Well, okay, I'm sure he's having fun with his buddy Will Ferrell, considering this is their second movie together, following 2006's terrible-but-in-comparison-awesome Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, but what happened to Mr. Cellophane? It's disheartening that an actor of such strength and quiet desperation has resorted to throwing temper tantrums in a movie from the guy who gave Anchorman to the world. Ferrell, who himself has shown growth in such little-seen gems as Melinda and Melinda and Stranger Than Fiction, has gotten to the point where his shtick is beyond tired. He was great during his years on Saturday Night Live, being one of its all-time greatest cast members, and as Richard Roeper suggested, maybe Step Brothers would've worked as a five-minute SNL sketch. But dragged out to 95 minutes, it's an ugly, screechy mess which makes you feel bad for everyone involved.
- Arlo J. Wiley
August 10, 2008
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