Huh. Check that out. The writer and director share the same surname. What were the odds? Wait. They’re siblings!? Color me shocked. OMG, you mean they were writing about family!? Gosh. No way.
I like that Paul Rudd is getting a chance to act a little. Yeah, showing up in full beard with a beach wardrobe and a laissez-faire attitude, he’s pretty much channeling Jack Black here (and of course, both those guys are taking cues from Jeff Bridges‘ The Dude, who kind of played a more grown up version of Sean Penn‘s Spicoli, who in turn was … aw screw it, you can go on forever in this vein). Anyway, I’ve grown tired of Paul Rudd’s uptight straight guy who finds value in “loosening up a little”. Maybe we can work on Jason Bateman next.
Oh yeah, a plot. Ned (Paul Rudd) is a lovable idiot. He gets aggressively entrapped for selling weed to an undercover cop while working a produce booth at a street fair. He offers to give the marijuana away, but the cop, who knows him, insists on buying it. See, now I’m bothered already. Yeah, so Ned’s an idiot. You don’t sell pot to a cop, especially one in uniform. Oh Ned, Our Idiot Brother, what a card. Ha ha. We’re all really amused I can tell you. But the cop knows Ned, which means he knows Ned is a really nice guy, just an idiot. And he still pushes it to the point of busting Ned? Who the Hell does this move benefit? The cop? The state? Ned? Society? Are we better off with Ned in jail? Are the Peretz sibs making a point about innocent drug abusers/drug dealers in jail? That seems unlikely as nobody in the film ever says, “well Ned shouldn’t have been in jail in the first place.” Would you send a well-meaning and good natured acquaintance away for three years to advance your own career? I wouldn’t either. This makes no sense. Is it really this hard to write a screenplay? Does Ned have to go to jail? We can see he’s an idiot. His circumstances of idiocy need not depend on a prison sentence, do they?
When Ned reappears from the slammer, where by all indications he had a rollicking good time, his family, fittingly, treats him like a doobie at a Grateful Dead concert. Ned’s entire concern in life is getting his dog, Willie Nelson, back. And Ned’s inability to screen for potential social anxieties outcastes him with each of his sisters, marginalized Liz (Emily Mortimer), floozy Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) and uptight Miranda (Elizabeth Banks). You can see the Woody Allen influence here. At the end of the day, however, I don’t think the Paretzpeople were quite spiteful enough to make the film they wanted. The situations fall consistently shy of being humorous because the characters aren’t wronged so much as inconvenienced and so Our Idiot Brother comes off more like a poor man’s Dinner for Schmucks. That’s a pretty poor man.
Elizabeth Banks has become the new Parker Posey. When did this happen? And, more to the point … did we need another Parker Posey?
Rated R, 90 Minutes
D: Jesse Peretz
W: David Schisgall, Evgenia Peretz
Genre: Woody Allen knockoff
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Real life idiots
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: People with family issues that can’t actually be resolved in a thrifty 90 Minutes
