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can't be it: they're nice people and we want to see them together. Grow up? They do that, a little bit, late in the movie, but then they regress, and we're supposed to root for that, too, even though we would rather flee from the theater screaming than watch these enabled jerks act any more childish.
The bottom line is that the premise is fatally flawed about eight times over.
There's nothing else to really occupy yourself with because the movie is so simple. It's too simple. After the big-budget considerations of Anchorman, with its period setting, and Talladega, with its large-scale racing scenes, the creative team no doubt wanted to go with a small-scale concept for a change. But Step Brothers doesn't feel intimate, it feels slight and spare.
Perhaps the most telling thing I can say is that the parts I did laugh at didn't involve Ferrell or Reilly. A car-ride sing-along that introduced us to Ferrell's smarmy younger brother (Adam Scott) is enjoyably creepy, and the character of the brother's freaky, desperate wife is a great showcase for the relatively unknown Kathryn Hahn.
In fact, let's just get rid of the step brothers altogether. I would much rather watch a romance between Jenkins and Steenburgen; every time they appear on screen I just wanted to see more of them and less of Ferrell and Reilly. And when a 23-year-old male Anchorman fan would rather watch a sweet romantic comedy starring two people over fifty than an R-rated comedy starring Will Ferrell, you know something went horribly wrong.
Movie Grade: D+
Synopsis:
Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, who last teamed in the box-office smash Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, now star in Step Brothers, directed by Adam McKay (Talladega Nights). In Step Brothers, Ferrell plays Brennan Huff, a sporadically employed thirty-nine-year-old who lives with his mother, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen). Reilly plays Dale Doback, a terminally unemployed forty-year-old who lives with his father, Robert (Richard Jenkins). When Robert and Nancy marry and move in together, Brennan and Dale are forced to live with each other as step brothers. As their narcissism and downright aggressive laziness threaten to tear the family apart, these two middle-aged, immature, overgrown boys will orchestrate an insane, elaborate plan to bring their parents back together. To pull it off, they must form an unlikely bond that maybe, just maybe, will finally get them out of the house. |
