'Step Brothers' is just funny enough

BY RAFER GUZMÁN | rafer.guzman@newsday.com

4:44 PM EDT, July 23, 2008

Will Ferrell (left) and John C. Reilly star in Columbia Pictures' comedy 'Step Brothers.'

Nudie magazines, dog poop, words like "mangina" -- if these are a few of your favorite things, " Step Brothers" is the comedy for you. Crudely and consistently funny, if never quite gut-busting, the movie gets a surprising amount of mileage from the sight of two grown men indulging their inner, giggling 10-year-olds.

The movie reunites the unlikely comic team of Will Ferrell, the bumbling man-boy, and John C. Reilly, a naturalistic actor with an unexpected gift for goofery.

In "Talladega Nights" (2006), they played a pair of rubes in NASCAR gear, but in "Step Brothers" (both films were directed and co-written by Adam McKay), they're essentially a couple of children in big bodies.

Ferrell is Brennan Huff, a 39-year-old layabout living happily with his mom ( Mary Steenburgen), while Reilly plays Dale Doback, a slightly older lout (he's 40) sponging off his dad (Richard Jenkins, gleefully shedding the seriousness of his critically acclaimed turn in "The Visitor").

When the two parents marry and move in together, the "children" begin as enemies but soon become friends. They bond over Chewbacca masks, build bunk beds and merrily pee into the same toilet. Their reckless antics, however, take a toll on their parents' marriage. That leads to one of the film's perversely amusing highlights: Haven't you always wanted to hear a father tell his blubbering brats that, yes, the divorce really is their fault?

Ferrell and Reilly are basically playing the same person; they often seem to be grabbing for the same jokes. But they're assisted by a good cast, including Adam Scott, a relative newcomer who holds his own as Brennan's too-perfect older brother, and the classy Steenburgen, who relishes the opportunity to drop a triple F-bomb. Short on script and largely improvised, "Step Brothers" winds up being like that brief toilet scenario: hit and miss.

PLOT Two overgrown louts become enemies, then friends, when their respective parents marry.
CAST Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Richard Jenkins, Mary Steenburgen.
BOTTOM LINE Consistently funny, if never quite gut-busting, "Step Brothers" gets plenty of mileage from its goofy stars and a great supporting cast.