Step Brothers (2008) Review

 Step Brothers (2002) 6/10

“Did we just become best friends?”

Hey guys. Today I watched Step Brothers. This movie has been on my watch list for quite some time so I figured I might as well watch it. From what I gathered from all of my friends and around the internet, this is regarded as one of the best comedy movies of the 2000’s, possibly ever. I gotta say though, after watching it, I feel like I had set my bar a little too high and I was a bit disappointed. This movie was first released on July 25, 2008 with the director being Adam McKay. I gotta say, this movie aged very nicely. Let’s begin.

This is the story of Brennan Huff and Dale Doback. Brennan’s mother and Dale’s father marry each other and the two become step brothers. Now, these two are absolute losers. Both 40 years old, no job, no girlfriend, and living with their respective parent. After this union of holy matrimony, both families move in together and chaos ensues. This is the story of growing the fuck up and taking responsibility of your life. I’m making it sound like it’s the greatest life lesson ever, but this movie’s lesson is only here as an afterthought. People don’t come to see Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly for life lessons. They see them to laugh. And this movie had me laughing quite often.

Anyway, how were the characters? They’re alright I guess. The characters were developed enough to carry the plot, but nothing to write home about. I wasn’t expecting deep character interactions in this movie, so I guess it’s okay. My favorite character in this has to be Robert, Dale’s father. Just him having to deal with these two agents of chaos was funny shit.

The acting for this is decent. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly carried this movie with their antics. Richard Jenkins was great as Robert and Mary Steenburgen was okay as Nancy Huff, Brennan’s mother. Dale’s brother Derek (played by Adam Scott) is kinda underrated in this movie. I wish the film kinda focused on him just a little bit more.

The writing for the movie was actually good. The dialogue between Brennan and Dale actually seemed natural, albeit raunchy half the time, but that’s understandable considering the characters. Honestly my favorite scene of the movie was the job interviews scene where it’s a montage of the duo doing interviews. I’m not much for potty humor but Dale just ripping ass for like a minute straight with that dumb look on his face had me dying. The overall writing for the comedy skits was hit and miss, although I feel like a good portion of the jokes are in the middle of the movie before the third act starts.

Cinematography is boring. No special shots or interesting scenes. Even in a comedy movie like this, you can still experiment with the camera instead of “point, shoot, move it around a bit, end shoot”. Music is average. Literally nothing to write about here.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but I feel like people put it on too high of a pedestal. Sure the movie has excellent moments and scenes (such as the job interviews, them sleep walking, Christmas night, the moment they became friends, and the whole Catalina Wine Mixer scene). Outside of that, the movie is fairly shallow and I’ll probably never watch it again unless it’s with a bunch of friends.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time

This is Zorgak, signing off.