Step Brothers (2008)

VERDICT:
7/10 Sibling Rivalries

Since Will Ferrell bombed it at the box office this past weekend with Land of the Lost, why not take a quick look back at his last effort, one of the funniest and most surprisingly panned movies of 2008.

Step Brothers is about two lazy, jobless, wildly immature middle-aged men who hate each others guts but are forced to live under the same roof when their parents get married and they become stepbrothers! Wow, that’s wacky!

Doesn’t need much explaining to know that all the comedy in this movie revolves around two very funny guys acting like whiny children for two hours. It’s not exactly high-brow writing we’re talking about here, but it had me belly laughing most of the time and that’s what you want to get out of this kind of movie.

There’s a lot of swearing, a lot of physical humor, and I’m a big enthusiast of comedies where grown men act like I did when I was ten. Some of the gags don’t really land like they should and it gets kind of slow by the end, but the first half hour of this movie made my cheeks sore, and that’s enough for a recommendation.

I think Will Ferrell has always been funny, but I know some of you out there don’t share in my sentiments on this issue. But lucky for you, Step Brothers isn’t Anchorman or Talladega Nights humor, this is more like “Will Ferrell-back-when-he-was-on-

SNL” humor. Ferrell and John C. Reilly, who’s growing on me as a funny individual, play well off each other and they have a pretty amusing script to work along with. I’ve been told by people who don’t like Ferrell that they even thought this movie was hilarious, so I’m going to take that leap and tell you to put your biases aside and give this movie a shot if you’re looking to laugh.

And props to Richard Jenkins who had the freaking year of his life in 2008 with an Oscar nod for his great performance in a very good, yet unfortunately overlooked, movie, The Visitor, and his hilarious turn as John C. Reilly’s dad in this movie. He’s another one of these guys who’s face you’d recognize but could never remember his name. Well remember it from now on suckas, because he’s the man and he can act.