Featured Review: STEP BROTHERS

STEP BROTHERS



Starring Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn, Rob Riggle, Seth Rogen



Directed by Adam McKay



Grade: D+




"Your voice is amazing. It was a like a combination of Fergie and Jesus!"

Step Brothers has officially broken my tolerance and taste for the vulgar. Long after many people turned away from this brand of comedy, I've been there to defend the art of humor in any shape or form. It was my belief that if your film cannot be witty or smartly comedic on its own merits, there's nothing a couple of tasteless, out-of-left field vulgarities and expletives can't usually fix.

Though while Step Brothers derives much of its best and funniest moments from these lewd scenarios, it ends up coming off so vicious, you really have to have no morals at all to laugh without feeling a little shame. For the writers and stars of this movie, it's obvious they were too busy laughing at themselves to realize how threatening and egregious their lines escalate into when seen as a whole 95 minute film. Like Anchorman, Step Brothers is very much a quotable movie, but unlike Anchorman, this picture doesn't have the same good will.

Ferrell and Reilly team up again, akin to their last effort, Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby, they have plenty of chemistry together. But also similar to the previous film, it veers off course and quickly becomes graceless to laugh at, and worse to appreciate as an actual piece of cinema. By the time Step Brothers attempts to steer the characters into a happy ending, it takes away the awkward laughter and replaces it with ugly transitory scenes that don't even make sense.

Brennan (Ferrell) and Dale (Reilly) are two 40 year olds who have been coddled by their parents Nancy and Robert (Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins respectively) for so long, they strut around their houses in their underwear with a sense of entitlement. But when Nancy and Robert get married, Dale and Brennan are forced to co-exist. At first each are threatened by the change in their comfortable lifestyle, but soon enough they become fast friends over a mutual hate for Brennan's younger brother. This ends up being a bigger problem for their exasperated parents. The bad influence Dale and Brennan bring to each other gives Robert incentive to give the men an ultimatum: get jobs or move out.

It's a good subject to mine humor from. There is a whole society of people in this country who refuse to grow up and take responsibility for themselves (at 23, I try my hardest not to end up like that). Such films as Failure To Launch and You, Me & Dupree touched upon the slacker, overgrown teenager infesting their responsible antagonists angle, but Step Brothers put a crude, adulterated take on it.

However, it's one thing to hear the brothers argue and shout obscenities at each other (often with body parts being involved), but how many times do you need to hear them cuss out their parents? Jenkins is played off almost as a bad guy for drawing a hard line on the two, but after 40 years of laziness as a father and the recent trouble the duo had gotten into, he was entirely justifiable. What's so funny about disrespecting EVERYBODY around you, at least after the 14th time?

Besides the viciousness and outrageousness of the characters' feelings towards one another, the supporting characters vary from bad to outright horrible. Adam Scott (Monster-In-Law) plays Brennan's much more successful younger brother, who is made to be a complete jerk. But his character is seen as an annoying jackass, and his scenes usually bring the movie to a complete halt. Even worse is Kathryn Hahn (Crossing Jordan) as his repressed wife, who after witnessing Dale punch her husband, goes off the deep end with a major crush on him. Every scene that involves her, in conjunction with Scott as her husband, totally ruin the chemistry, however vile, between Ferrell and Reilly.

Don't get me wrong, I laughed, and I laughed hard. But for every one-liner that was brilliantly observed or random, there was plenty of them to make you cringe. It ends up becoming like a series of skits, trying to find out what the step brothers can possibly do to be funny. For such a solid premise for a straight comedy, the whole effort was terribly disappointing, which has become an increasing reality for projects with Judd Apatow's name on it. I think he and the other guys involved in his circle need to just sit the rest of this year out and recoup before they even attempt an Anchorman 2.