One quick note: MasterChugs Theater will now be on Thursday evenings instead of Fridays. I’m a power-hungry animal that wants my way and no one puts me in the corner. On to the review!
With Step Brothers, Will Ferrell seems to be intentionally setting up a target for critics who have lambasted him reusing a man-child persona in most of his roles. In this movie, Ferrell’s character Brennan is as dumb as his version George W. Bush (ironic given how the movies starts), as enthusiastic as a Spartan cheerleader, as convinced of his own importance as Ron Burgundy and as obsessed with toys as Buddy the Elf. And, to prove that you shouldn’t fix it if it ain’t broke, Step Brothers is hilarious, an ode to the adolescent that lives within us all but takes human form in Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly.
Even if Will Ferrell didn’t keep returning to the same comedic topics, it would be easy to feel that he’s begun to repeat himself, because he revs so many scenes to the exact same pitch of satirical hysteria. It’s quite all right to feel that way. In Step Brothers, though, he does something new. He plays a guy even further down the developmental food chain than usual—a 40ish loser who still lives with his mother—and he makes this walking punchline a hostile, cussed mess, with four-letter words shock-popping out of his mouth. Brennan Huff is an overgrown 9-year-old who’s always in mid-tantrum (at least, he looks that way), and so is John C. Reilly’s Dale Doback. The two become bunk-bed step-siblings when their divorced parents marry, and for a while they’re mortal enemies, and then (of course) buddies. At which point they really get cretinous.
The absolute randomness of the brothers hating each other is hilarious. The movie’s strong point is that everything is so out of left field that it’s almost impossible to not laugh at certain scenes. For example, we’ve all seen the scene in the previews where John C. Reilly shouts at Ferrell to never ever touch his drum set, cut to Ferrell playing them wildly, followed by denying it later. What they don’t show is that during the “you so touched my drums” scene, Ferrell gets angry to the point where he runs upstairs and rubs his scrotum (or hopefully, an incredibly convincing prosthetic) all over the drums.
Step Brothers was directed by Adam McKay, who also made the SG-favorite Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby — although it’s possible his real masterpiece is the widely circulated web-short The Landlord, in which Ferrell is hassled by a foulmouthed, 2-foot-tall landlady in a dress that resembles an oversize fairy costume. (She happens to be about 2 years old.) Step Brothers–which was written by McKay and Ferrell; Judd Apatow is one of the producers–is like “The Three Stooges” for grown-ups, although that comparison doesn’t quite work because there are plenty of grown-ups who still like “The Three Stooges” (you know who you are). Stupid, crude and hilarious, Step Brothers works by sneaking past our better judgment: I don’t know why the sight of Reilly, aggressively chattering at his dignified doctor-father while dressed in a faded Bahamas T-shirt and Kelly green Underoos, is funny. It just is.
Step Brothers is filled with dozens of quotable lines that your local middle-schoolers are sure to be spouting soon. The best has to be when Dale hears Brennan sing for the first time and tells him, with tears in his eyes, “Your voice is like a combination between Fergie and Jesus. I can’t even look at you right now.” That’s a pretty good approximation of the Step Brothers tone, in case you haven’t caught any of Ferrell and McKay’s efforts before—irreverent, silly, and a little bit emotional at its core. In fact, kind of like the actual George W. Bush line that opens the film: “Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.” The fact that Step Brothers manages to be as funny as that single quote means it’s more than worth your time.
Step Brothers is hit-and-miss, but it makes me wish that the usual American comedy of how-stupid-can-we-get had this much rage.