Step Brothers - Tea Bags and Immaturity

There has been a recent surge in comedies that feature adult actors behaving like teenagers or even children. A good example would be Old School where a bunch of 30-something guys start a college fraternity. In this movie, Step Brothers, two 40-something guys play step brothers like a couple of spoiled kids. At times, it can be funny but it mostly just falls apart by the third act.

Will Ferrell plays the son of Mary Steenburgen, and he still lives at home with his mom and can't find a job. John C. Reilly plays the son of Richard Jenkins, and he still lives at home with his dad and doesn't even want a job. Both of these guys have major maturity issues, though it seems like Reilly has it worse that Ferrell. When Jenkins and Steenburgen get married, they move in together and it forces Reilly and Ferrell to become step brothers as well as share a room. As you might imagine, neither of them are too happy with this situation and fight most of the time.

The premise of this movie would have best been served as a 5-minute Saturday Night Live sketch as opposed to a 90-minute movie. There just wasn't enough material to hold this thing afloat, and it even makes fun of itself a couple of times. I will admit that I did laugh a good bit during the first hour, but after that I found my attention and amusement both waning. Believe it or not, this movie did actually gross a little over $100 million at the box office.

Be warned that this movie is very much rated R. It is full of profanity and there is even one scene where Ferrell ‘tea bags' (ask an MSNBC host) Reilly's drum set, and it does show the...umm...tea bag. There is no nudity other than that part, which barely counts as nudity because it was obviously a prosthetic device. You definitely don't want your kids to watch this movie.

This was directed and co-written by Adam McKay, who previous did Anchorman and Talladega Nights, both of which were far superior. Prior to making Will Ferrell movies, McKay was a writer for Saturday Night Live. I thought he kept the pacing pretty tight, but there is a musical number toward the end of the movie that goes on for way too long and that was what really killed it for me. Listening to Ferrell sing for five minutes just wasn't funny, nor was it even intended to be.

In the end, Step Brothers was kind of fun, but also really stupid. I happen to like Will Ferrell's brand of comedy, but I think it works best when he has a cast of characters with whom to interact and play off each other, which is why his movies like Anchorman and Talladega Nights were so much better.  If you like Ferrell's style, then you'll at least want to see this movie, but you probably won't buy the DVD or Blu-Ray.