Step Brothers, 15

Step Brothers

Verdict: Sibling rivalry ****

CARDS on the table time. And I admit this against all common sense, good judgement, and subclause 31(B) of the Mental Health Act.

I really, really, really like Will Ferrell.

And not just the genius Anchorman and the under-rated Talladega Nights.

But the rest too. Particularly the low-rent, self-indulgent, cr*p stuff. That online vid of him shouting at the toddler? Can’t get enough of it.

And I stand before you today, the only human being on the planet who laughed all the way through Semi-Pro.

So for this dumb-bum, the prospect of watching the guy muck around and swear with John C. Reilly for an hour and a half is sweet manna from heaven.

And, in a nutshell, that’s Step Brothers.

Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen (who man oh man, is looking hot these days) are two middle-aged widowed parents who fall in love and get married.

Only hitch being, their two kids from previous marriages—Brennan (Ferrell) and Dale (Reilly)—are stay-at-home, 40-year-old losers who must now get used to living together as stepbrothers.

And there is no further story than that. No message, no deeper meaning or wider comment on society, nowt, nada, zip.

Just an hour and a half of these two numbskull manboys shouting and fighting. Which is so incredibly, stupidly funny, I’m laughing just reading my notes.

Spoiling jokes in film reviews is cheap and lazy journalism, cheap and lazy is this column’s speciality.

Hurt

But if you don’t want to know what happens, skip five paragraphs ahead now.

Because these bits are just too good for me not to flag up.

No1: the boys are told to “dress smart” for some interviews, so they turn up in tuxedos (the start of an inspired job-hunt montage).

No2: Brennan decides he has to hurt Dale badly. So—out of all the possible things he could have chosen to say or do—he wipes his scrotum on Dale’s drum kit.

And No3: the pair’s home-made rap video—a two-minute masterpiece called Boats ’n’ Hoes, already appearing on a YouTube page near you, and not remotely suitable for children, the elderly, pregnant women, or anyone disturbed by the expression “p**** pirate”.

Funny on paper. On screen, unashamedly low-brow gold.

Because the simple fact is, in a year where good comedies have numbered almost zero, Step Brothers is the most I’ve laughed in the cinema in 2008.

For sheer weight of gags, it even edges out Forgetting Sarah Marshall (although FSM remains the slightly better film overall).

Most of the best bits smell strongly of improv. And this is where Ferrell and Reilly are at their deranged, free-associating best.

Both parents are also fantastic. (Richard Jenkins’ furious reactions to some of the filth spouted by his son is priceless).

And coming dangerously close to stealing the show on a few occasions is Brennan’s rich, obnoxious brother Derek. Full credit to serial bit-parter Adam Scott for creating this great comedy monster. He went for obnoxious, self-important, middle-class berk. He got suburban Tom Cruise.

And he provides one of the high points of the entire movie when he forces his absurdly groomed family to spend a car journey singing Sweet Child O’ Mine in four-part harmony.

Elsewhere? Enough quotable one-liners to sustain a faltering student pub conversation well past closing time.

Poke

And a top-notch cameo from Seth Rogen that proves there is still a place in the oeuvre of contemporary Western cinema for the fart gag.

If you hate Will Ferrell’s off-the-wall sense of humour, you are basically looking at a 90-minute-long poke in the eye.

But if you enjoyed Anchorman or have a taste for the rude, the tasteless or the flat-out idiotic, Step Brothers cannot be recommended highly enough.

And for a Ferrell groupie like me? O Brothers, I Heart Thou.

OUT FRIDAY