Poolside is the cool side: John C. Reilly as Dale (in the Oliver Hardy role) and Will Ferrell as Brennan (in the Stan Laurel role) in Adam McKay's "Stepbrothers", which opened today in the U.S. and Canada. (Photo: Sony Pictures)
"You're just a child growing older," Ashley Judd's character Charlene tells Val Kilmer's Chris in the film "Heat". Mr. Kilmer's character doesn't quite agree with this assessment, but there's every guarantee that John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell would drink to it wholeheartedly if Ms. Judd played the same character telling them the same thing in "Stepbrothers", Adam McKay's hilarious new comedy which opened today across the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Ferrell and Mr. Reilly both have an ability to excel in more serious roles but as a duo in comedy they prove to be a modern-day Laurel and Hardy, especially in this new film.
Mr. Ferrell plays Brennan, an almost-40-year-old man who is still living with his mother Nancy (played by Mary Steenburgen), and Mr. Reilly plays Dale, roughly the same age, who lives with his father Robert (Richard Jenkins, who is terrific here.) Dale and Brennan, like the rest of us, are kids at heart, but they really are kids in their approach to life, including job interviews and neighborhood bullies. If Tom Hanks regressed somewhat melancholically at times as a child in a big man's body in the film "Big" (1988), then Mr. Ferrell and Mr. Reilly gleefully celebrate the joy and juvenile nature of being teenage boys in adult bodies. And they do it well, which is what makes "Stepbrothers", which otherwise as a film has little else going for it, a success. Comedy drives this engine, and as Judd Apatow-produced or directed comedies do, the requisite gross-out joke or gag (whether involving dog feces or testicle exposure) is thrown in.
After Nancy and Robert rendez-vous and get married, the two overgrown kids lock horns bitterly. When the ice between them thaws further hell breaks loose. Furthermore, Brennan has a smarmy, arrogant, cold-hearted younger brother Derek (Adam Scott) whose wife Alice (Kathryn Hahn) is so horny for Dale that she can't stand it. Alice says out loud some wild things that perhaps some women are only thinking -- or that more than a few women say in the comfort of the ladies' bathrooms. Meanwhile, Brennan has a desire for Denise, a psychologist (Andrea Savage) and he never fails to hide his feelings for her.
Somehow throughout all the mayhem, Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Steenburgen's lovebird characters remain happily entwined amidst sleepwalking chaos and late 1970's nostalgia.
The bottom line is that Mr. Ferrell is the left hand to Mr. Reilly's right, and Mr. Reilly is the left hand to Mr. Ferrell's right (or something like that) as comedians and together they are more effective than apart (at least in recent films like "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" and "Semi-Pro".) They work well together on the big screen, and had not for their effortless chemistry and ability to push each other's buttons, there would be little to rave about. In Mr. McKay's "Talladega Nights" both shone brightly, even with Sasha Baron Cohen's presence threatening to disrupt the comedy duo. And Mr. McKay's "Anchorman" also showed Mr. Ferrell in overdrive -- without Mr. Reilly however -- but in the company of numerous comedy actors like Vince Vaughn (who also excels in dramatic roles at times) to surround him and further round out a good film about a San Diego television news anchor.