STEP BROTHERS (2008 - Cert 15)

Anchorman was a phenomenon. It barely made waves at the box office but once it made it's way onto DVD it quickly became everyone's favourite film. People quote it all the time, you can't sit by a swimming pool without someone shouting 'Cannonball' before piling into the wet stuff. Many films since have tried to recapture the formula, to varying levels of success, including those made by the same people, namely Adam McKay and Will Ferrell.

Step Brothers is another attempt by the two of them to do it all over again. The plot, for what it's worth, is tenuous to say the least. A man and a woman embark on a relationship in their twilight years, later discovering that they both have 40 year old sons, Brennan and Dale, that still live at home (Will Ferrell and John C Reilly). The couple get married and then move in together, leaving Ferrell and Reilly to shack up together and share a room.

Cue rivalry and hilarity.



The premise itself has very little to do with the humour of the film. Instead, it's the characters who bear the burden of having to produce the laughs and it's clear to me that the writers of the film (including McKay and Ferrell) did not have much confidence in the concept they created. They felt the need to turn Brennan and Dale into kids in grown up bodies, only without the charm and wit to be found in Tom Hanks' performance in Big.

None of what follows really makes sense (although the same can easily be levelled at Anchorman so that shouldn't necessarily be a criticism) but there are some funny moments, only one or two though, the majority of the gags miss the mark - Tumbleweed galore. The bits that work encapsulate the random humour of Anchorman that I suspect are improvisations (one line here or one visual joke there) and the over the top support characters such as Ferrell's character's more successful brother Derek and his too good to be true family. The parts that don't work are inane and overly juvenile, portraying the lead characters as something closer to mentally deranged rather than socially awkward. It's got a bit of a sinister tone that creates flashes of comedy that left my brow furrowed more than anything else. I'm not being a snob, I have no right to be. The two biggest laughs I had were probably the most childish and stupid moments of the film, an olympic-length fart in a job interview and the collapse of an improvised bunk bed. Having said that, the good work was undone by scenes with a testicle on a drum kit and one focusing on some white dog poo.

I've seen much worse than this, but then I've also seen much better. What I think it shows is that the Ferrell and McKay approach to film is chuck as much jokery at the audience and some will eventually stick. It's the law of averages. It's the same approach they applied to Anchorman, and whatever the reason, the gags stuck to the canvas more during that film. I'm not asking them to become subtle film makers, emulate Wes Anderson and cast Bill Murray in their next film, because they won't, but maybe just to put a bit more thought into what they're doing. I suppose I'm jealous, I'd love people to give me a lots of money to film me and my mates being idiots. Oh hang on, isn't that Jack Ass.....?