Step Brothers 2008

[7.2/10] There is a story in Step Brothers. It involves two older people finding one another, bonding over their large adult sons, and getting married. It has the faintest patina of character arcs: a stepdad who has a change of heart, a couple who breaks up and gets back together, a phobia of public singing that is overcome, and a couple of manchildren who form a bond and grow up just enough to pass muster.

It doesn't really matter though. The story in Step Brothers is an afterthought, a fig leaf, and excuse to string together enough scenes and misadventures where director Adam McKay can pair up Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly and let their wild comedy stylings loose for a little under two hours. Most of the characters’ actions make little sense, few people (if anyone) in the movie acts like a real person instead of a prop or a cartoon character, and true to the childlike protagonists, the plot progression can roughly be described as “this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened.”

But you know, it works here. It’s not an approach I’d want to see in most comedy films, and lord knows that Step Brothers hangs together with all the stability of a 747 patched up with duct tape, but thanks to the strength of the performers, it somehow manages to make it from take off to landing with all its chuckles intact.

Most of that owes to the cast. Will Ferrell is just one of those preternatural comedy talents, who you could put in front of a white wall reading a menu from Denny’s, and trust that he would, through his delivery and demeanor alone, somehow make it hilarious. His rapport with John C. Reilly, which has now spanned several movies, is also unassailable, as McKay squeezes every last ounce he can of the well-honed comedic double act the pair has going.

That’s really the only bit of earned heart that Step Brothers has going for it. (And, in fairness, the movie isn’t really going for anything but the most tacked on sense of heart.) Much of the humor from the film derives from two forty-year-old men acting like ten-year-old boys. Sometimes, that comedy runs aground on the realization that as amusing as the antics of Ferrell and Reilly’s characters are, oftentimes it’s pretty horrible or an imposition on the people who care about them.

But the other side of the coin is that, as ridiculous as it is that the pair would crash their dad/stepdad’s boat in an ill-advised rap video or try to bury one another alive, there is something adorable about their middle-aged version of a prepubescent friendship. The way these grown-up stowaways find each other as kindred spirits, taking pleasure in their joint adventures and two-man schemes makes you sympathize with the duo just a little bit, and helps take some of the edge of the premise.

The films also buoyed by the rest of its cast. It’s a trip to see Adam Scott, best known for playing the sensitive straight man Ben Wyatt on Parks and Recreation, play the asshole brother in this one. Scott soaks up the odiousness of the character, crafting the perfect douchebag who seems to presage his unexpected but delightful turn in The Good Place. Speaking of Parks and Rec alums, Kathryn Hahn turns a male gaze-y, one-note role as the wife of Scott’s character (who lusts after Reilly’s character), into a whirling dervish of comic energy. And the decorated Richard Jenkins (who portrays the boys’ father/stepfather) plays a character whose motivation and demeanor seems to change with the wind, but who makes it all believable and funny nonetheless.

Again, there’s very little momentum to the film, but the comic setpieces are good, so it’s easier to let it slide. The boys going on a series of ill-fated job interviews works as montage. Their efforts to brand and market themselves are amusing. And even the final set piece, which requires “awe-inspiring” opera singing from Ferrell and inexplicably hilarious repetition of the phrase “Catalina Wine Mixer” manages to find that off-the-wall sweet spot that makes the Ferrell/McKay team-ups tick.

The one beef I have with the film is that it’s not much more than the sum of its parts. There’s a lot of great elements to Step Brothers: an undeniably great array of performers, a lot chances for silliness, and even the faintest hint of commentary in the “failure to launch” notion at the heart of the film. But it’s all just kind of floating out there, not really connected to anything or building on anything else in the film.

If anything, Step Brothers feels like a film designed for the YouTube age, where there’s little in the way of running gags or character development or even plot that requires it to be watched from beginning to end in one sitting. You can chop up your favorite scenes, recognize the archetypes at play, and enjoy them on a single serving basis without missing anything. Hell, some of them work even better without trying to pretend that the movie is genuinely attempting to connect the dots from one scene to another.

Maybe that’s a feature rather than a bug. There’s inevitably a loose atmosphere to these Ferrel/McKay joints, one willing to get you to laugh by any means necessary, regardless of whether the characters make much sense or turn on a dime. There’s a cartoony quality that is at least consistent, across and within their films, that makes the audience feel like it gets to sit ringside and watch a bunch of talented comedians clown around, even if it feels like the whole team has their fingers crossed through most of it.

My preference is always going to be for comedy rooted in story and character. Even skits and sketches do better when there’s a specificity to what’s happening and who it’s happening to. But when you have comedians who make it look effortless on the screen, and can get laughs via their deliveries or reactions alone, maybe you can get away with barely having, let alone caring about, a plot.