Step Broth­ers

Men behav­ing like chil­dren has been a comedic sta­ple in the work of both Will Fer­rell and Judd Apa­tow. Think of Ferrell’s streak­ing frat boy in Old School or the ston­er geeks in Apatow’s Knocked Up. It makes sense, then, that the star and pro­duc­er of Step Broth­ers has made the most lit­er­al movie about arrest­ed devel­op­ment yet.

The plot sees Bren­nan (Fer­rell) and Dale (John C Reil­ly) as two mid­dle-aged men who, for rea­sons that are nev­er ful­ly explained, still live with and depend upon their sin­gle par­ents. When Dale’s retire­ment-age father and Brennan’s well-pre­served moth­er (vet­er­an char­ac­ter actor Richard Jenk­ins and Mary Steen­bur­gen, aka Mrs Ted Dan­son, respec­tive­ly) decide to get mar­ried, the two are forced to live together.

But here’s the twist: while the men in Apatow’s films have to this point behaved either like drop-out teens or horny losers, the two heroes of Step Broth­ers take it one step fur­ther – or one step back, if you like – and act like spoilt 10-year-olds. Even though they’re in their forties.

And that’s the gag. And no mat­ter how many times Fer­rell rubs his tes­ti­cles on Reilly’s drumk­it, or Reil­ly hits Fer­rell with a bicy­cle, it’s still essen­tial­ly the same joke that Har­ry Enfield came up with for Kevin the Teenag­er all those years ago: men act­ing like chil­dren, repeat­ed ad nau­se­am. That said, this is no Kevin & Per­ry Go Large. Fer­rell and Reil­ly are tal­ent­ed come­di­ans, and their sur­re­al impro­vised insults and well-timed slap­stick keep the laughs coming.

Still, it’s hard not to feel as if Fer­rell and co are phon­ing it in. After Anchor­man and Tal­lade­ga Nights, this noisy, non­sen­si­cal com­e­dy is just more of the same. Watch­ing yet anoth­er iron­i­cal­ly chore­o­graphed fight scene, or Reil­ly march­ing about in his Y‑fronts, it strikes you that it’s not just Fer­rell and Apatow’s char­ac­ters that are suf­fer­ing from arrest­ed development.