"Step Brothers" is like that annoying cousin at family reunions that won't stop throwing pine cones at you and teases the family dog with a stick. For a bit, you can grit your teeth, turn your back and chalk it up to age.
But after a while, you just wish they would grow up.
This seems a lot to ask of Will Ferrell right now. The once untouchable ex-SNL funny man has succeeding in over-playing the big, dumb, immature oaf who says goofy things with a straight face. Anymore, his roles are simple variations of the same loud performance set in different situations: In "Kicking and Screaming," it was a soccer pitch, "Talladega Nights" teamed him with NASCAR, "Blades of Glory" triple-lutzed into mediocrity, and "Semi-Pro" gave him an afro, a basketball and an excuse to wrestle a bear.
Now, with "Step Brothers," which he co-wrote with director Adam McKay, Ferrell is in danger of dragging respectable actor John C. Reilly down to a lower, less flattering level. The film is your classic example of putting two potentially hilarious presences in front of the camera, sorta-kinda writing a script, but mainly just closing your eyes and hoping for the best.
Ferrell is Brennan, a 39-year-old slacker still living at home with his mom, played by Mary Steenburgen, who looks waaay too good to be his parent. Brennan has no job, no prospects and seems content to spend his days on the couch with nachos. But he's forced off his feet when his mom marries a rich doctor (character actor Richard Jenkins), who happens to have a 40-year-old stay-at-home son of his own, Dale (Reilly). Brennan and his mom move in, though Dale sees it as more of a home invasion, and the two immediately get off on the wrong foot, indignant of their respective parent's decision to get married.
As a premise, the idea of bringing Ferrell and Reilly together at the dinner table isn't an entirely bad one for a comedy. Nobody's reinventing the wheel here, but the two actors worked together before on "Talladega" and can play well off the other's comic skills.
During the film's many sequences of step sibling shenanigans (this really is quite the violent picture, with staircase falls, live burials and playground torture devices) the pair's physicality remind me of uncoordinated animals, Ferrell a chubby giraffe on the loose, Reilly an ox with no sense of direction.
Unfortunately, "Step Brothers" can only ride on fumes for so long and like much of Ferrell's work, the script depends on gibberish and expletives to keep things "funny." After the novelty of the set-up is gone (which is quick), the actors are left to stand around and make penis and fart jokes just to segue to the next sequence. I've always had a problem with comedies that overdo on their premise. It becomes a crutch and aggravation. After the first 20 minutes of crash bang boom, I'd had enough.
But "Step Brothers" doesn't just beat the dead horse - it buries it and plants the headstone. Example: after Brennan and Dale become buddy-buddy and royally screw up an evening out with their folks, Richard Jenkins bends Will Ferrell over his leg and spanks him. "I should have done this a long time ago," screams the father. Is this really what we've come to? Grown men getting spanked by other grown men? I don't like to watch kids act like kids, but adults doing the same is trip-to-the-dentist level painful.
The film will do business because, hey, it's got Will Ferrell and that funny-looking guy from "Walk Hard" it in (remember the name: John C. Reilly, and watch "The Hours" to see what he can really do).
Studio executives will continue to stick Ferrell and his brethren in these situational comedies until they stop making money, movies where mouths are referred to as "suck holes," the word "faggot" is used far too casually and when Will Ferrell's character gets an idea he says something nonsensical like "It feels like a bolt of lightning just struck the tip of my penis."
Oh, brother.
bill fech is a may 2008 film studies and english graduate from the university of nebraska-lincoln.
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