Sneer As (Kin)folk
26. Aug, 2011 
1 Comment
Our Idiot Brother
Oh Brother, Why Aren’t Thou?
Official Website |Â Trailers & Mo
R | 90 min
Our Idiot Brother feels like the work of a first time director, with a screenplay that plays out like a mediocre sitcom pilot.  Well, OIB is director Jesse Peretz‘s third entry (never have seen The Ex or The Château, and we’re guessing we probably don’t need to), and it is indeed David Schisgall and Evgenia Peretz‘s first stab at a motion picture script.  Does this explain why their stellar assembled esmble and R rating are basically laid to waste?  Maybe.  OIB is a harmless lil flick, and it’s hactually purty darn hard to even come up with anything negative to say about it (we did smile a bunch, dangit), but there’s nothing really here to see or hear, outside of folks who are Shirley Knight completists.  If that’s you, then go ahead, bother with Brother
But if yer like we, you expect a little something more than nothing (it’s basically the story of a guy who wants his dog back, but it’s not as boring as Wendy & Snoozy) when you got Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel and Emily Mortimer (oh gawd, do we love this woman) playing patient sisters to ‘idiot’ brother/minor Lebowski Paul Rudd, no??  And what if you surround these fine folk with the likes of Steve Coogan, Rashida Jones, Hugh Dancy and Adam Scott???  Shouldn’t that be enuff to miss misfiring?  Apparently not.  Everyone here is game, especially a chillaxed Rudd, but everything here is also tame, and kinda lame
A better approach would have been to toss the family aside and partner Rudd up with fellow mellow head T.J. Miller, and have them do crazy stuff, like open a candle store, with zero cares in the world or bidness sense.  That idea actually pops up at the end of the movie (and no, we didn’t ruin a single thing by telling you this), but by then, any buzz you might have had, will surely have subsided.  Pass the peace pipe, and pass on this
Chin Up: Paul Rudd’s first film role was in 1992’s A Question of Ethics, a film he was so appalled by (for religious reasons – he’s Jewish, the flick was Jesus preachy), that he asked to be credited as Kenny Chin. Â can’t find any video of it online, but found this still
Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinking BadgesÂ
Brother is familiar stuff at a theater near jews tomorrow
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…
WE STILL LOVE YOU RUDD STUDD!!!!
