| STEP BROTHERS (2008) : A.McKay : 5/10 : review online MON.22.SEP. |
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 Friends and critics I respect assure me that Step Brothers is one of the cleverest, funniest films of the year. And I can see why so many people get a kick out of this story of two fortyish blokes (Will Ferrell, John C Reilly), who've somehow never gotten round to moving out of their respective suburban homes, and are forced to share a bedroom when their parents (Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins) get inconveniently hitched. I can see it - see the comic skills of Reilly and Ferrell, whose facial, physical and follical similarities are entirely deliberate here. They were pretty amusing together in Talladega Nights, and obviously wanted to keep the kettle boiling with another dopey project. I can see the freewheeling daftness of the picture's flimsy excuse for a plot (the lack of major incident is, in these high-concept days a refreshing plus). I can see all of this, but I just can't quite feel it. I very much liked the use of LCD Soundsystem's 'North American Scum' during the opening titles - it led me to expect rather more in the way of social satire than the movie ended up delivering. True, I chuckled frequently and laughed out loud perhaps half a dozen times - but by the final reel I was looking at my watch wishing it would all come to a sudden end. The script, by Ferrell and McKay (with story input from Reilly) really starts treading water in the final third, as the central duo's love-hate-love-hate relationship finally settles down into mutual respect and co-operation - we're not a million miles from the rivalry/affection dynamic between Reilly's Reed Rothchild and Dirk Diggler from Boogie Nights. Unfortunately - and this isn't much use in a film review, I admit - we're in that tricky zone known as the subjectivity of humour. One man's laughing-gas being, as the old-school vaudevillians used to so pithily put it, another's ortho-chloro-benzal malonitrile. Neil Young 22.Sep.08 -------------------------------------------------------------------- USA 98m (BBFC timing) director : Adam McKay (Talladega Nights..., Anchorman...) editor : Brent White (Knocked Up, Talladega Nights..., The 40 Year Old Virgin, etc) seen 19.Sep.08 Bradford (CineWorld cinema : £5.70) |
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