Men will be boys

Step Brothers
Review by Nathan Weinbender

You’d think it would be impossible to make Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly totally unfunny, but “Step Brothers” does it. They play middle-aged men with the mental capacities of twelve-year-olds, and although the movie thinks their arrested development is amusing, I found it creepy and annoying. It’s mean-spirited, too: Ferrell and Reilly have played clueless dolts in the past, but they were goofily endearing. Here they come across as malicious sociopaths.

Ferrell is Brennan, who lives with his doting mother (Mary Steenburgen), and Reilly is Dale, who lives with his doting father (Richard Jenkins). When their parents fall in love and spontaneously tie the knot, Brennan and Dale are forced to live under the same roof and sleep in the same room. At first they despise one another, but they swiftly become friends when they discover they have similar interests, one of which is hating Brennan’s more successful younger brother.

It’s a thin premise, but it certainly could have worked, especially considering how naturally charismatic Ferrell and Reilly are—Ferrell was very funny in “Anchorman,” and Reilly stole every scene in “Talladega Nights.” But “Step Brothers” ignores the charm of its actors, imprisoning them in roles that are unpleasant and forces them into situations that exist as textbook examples of how not to write and perform comedy.

Take, for instance, a scene in which Brennan and Dale are harassed, bullied and beaten up by a group of little kids. It’s a funny concept, sure, but the script, written by Ferrell and director Adam McKay, doesn’t know when to quit. The sight of two overgrown men being terrorized by eight-year-olds is worth a laugh, but the movie takes the whole idea too far: The sequence drags on for too long and then ends with a close-up of Will Ferrell licking dog poo. That’s lazy, uninspired writing.

It doesn’t help, either, that no one in this movie is remotely likeable. In fact, most everybody is completely detestable. Brennan and Dale are intended to be loveable dopes, but they come across mentally retarded creeps who should either be hospitalized or euthanized. And Jenkins and Steenburgen, both terrific actors, are given thankless jobs as the parents: They wander through the movie looking embarrassed and uncomfortable, almost queasy. I know how they feel.

I have yet to mention the language in “Step Brothers,” which is needlessly vulgar. Now, I’m all for hard-R language, but only if it serves a purpose. Here, the curse words function as a punch line rather than as punctuation, so we’re supposed to laugh simply because the characters have filthy mouths. This movie seems to have been written by a dirty-minded teenager who was paid by the four-letter word.

Oh, the movie looks crummy, too, although it apparently had a budget of $50 million. They must have had some terrific catering on set.

Grade: C-

Directed by Adam McKay. Written by Will Ferrell and McKay. Starring Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins and Adam Scott. R; 93m.