Step Brothers – A Movie Review
Brennan Huff, a sporadically employed thirty-nine-year-old, lives with his mother, Nancy. Dale Doback, a terminally unemployed forty-year-old lives with his father, Robert. 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.
Genres: Comedy; Running Time: 1 hr. 35 min.; Release Date: July 25th, 2008 (wide); MPAA Rating: R for crude and sexual content, and pervasive language.
Starring: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Adam Scott, Mary Steenburgen, Kathryn Hahn
Directed by: Adam McKay
We watched this on DVD a couple of weeks ago. The movie is about two grown men who live with their single parents. Well, Will’s Mom and John’s Dad meet, fall in love, and this is how they become Step Bros. At first they hate each other and cause the expected havoc, and then they decide they love each other and cause even more havoc.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not gaga over Will’s flicks. I’m entirely used to his humor and it’s become pretty predictable. Here, tell me this doesn’t sound like a Ferrell line, “If you don’t watch it I’ll take your stomach and punch it. Hard. With my fists!” Line after line like this tends to become just moderately entertaining and you’re left there just waiting for something outrageous to happen. But with reasonably talented actors who are fully invested in their roles, this movie maintains it’s silly charm pretty much the entire way through.
The screenplay is a bit weak, but the movie is save (somewhat) by the fantastic delivery that he and John produce during the film. They ham it up to huge heights and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t funny. The sleep walking scenes were incredibly silly and probably my favorite scene from either Talladega or this.
Overall, this should easily appeal to people with a sensitive funny bone. Silly, very stupid and a fart joke for good measure, you could do much worse than this.