Step Brothers DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams



Headline: Slackers Exhibit Sibling Rivalry in Dysfunctional Family Comedy



Sleazy does it in this one-trick pony about a couple of middle-aged adolescents who refuse to grow up. One is 39 year-old Brennan “Nighthawk” Huff (Will Ferrell), unemployed and still living at home with his divorced mom, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen). The other is 40 year-old Dale “Dragon” Doback (John C. Reilly), a parasite sponging off his widowed dad, Robert (Ricard Jenkins).

Brennan is a couch potato content to fritter away his days eating junk food in front of the TV while Dale divides his time between managing a fantasy baseball league online and playing the drums. The only reason these lazy slobs meet is because their parents fall in love at a medical conference.

After a whirlwind romance, Nancy and Robert decide to marry. This means that their slacker sons must not only live under the same roof but also share the same bedroom. The new step brothers’ instant dislike for each other initiates an escalating turf war marked by infantile antics like Brennan rubbing his private parts on Dale’s sacred drum set, and the latter getting even by threatening to sleep with his mother.

The pranksters prove to be particularly fond of fart jokes and sexual preference slurs, in case you find either of those brands of humor particularly appealing. Gradually, the newlyweds get fed up with the sibling rivalry, so they give their sons a month to find a job and another place to stay.

Too bad this re-teaming of Ferrell and Reilly failed to generate the magic of their prior outing in Talladega Nights. And with exhibitionist Ferrell finding another excuse to parade around in his birthday suit, the overexposed thespian is in danger of going down in cinematic history as the man who nude too much.



Poor (0 stars)

Unrated

Running time: 98 minutes

Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

2-Disc DVD Extras: Deleted scenes, plus a half-dozen featurettes.



To see a trailer of Step Brothers, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHnvULVOtz8