Ay, que lastima. Una idea con promesa … una pelicula lamentable. Pienso que, que …
¿que? How do I say, “WTF?” in Spanish? Lo siento mucho. Burrito.
Here Will Ferrell plays a dimwitted, Spanish-speaking, Mexican ranch hand. This is kind of his Nacho Libre. You can’t fault the effort. He saw a comic premise and ran with it. Mucho rapido. ¡Ándele! ¡Ándele! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba! ¡Epa! ¡Epa! ¡Epa! Yeehaw! Ok, so there wasn’t much humor in the premise … and were I Mexican I’m not quite sure how I’d feel about being represented by blue-eyed Will Ferrell, drug dealing Raul (Diego Luna) or crime lord’s woman Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez; still love that name).
Almost entirely in subtitled Spanish, Casa de mi Padre is a concept film. It probably was hilarious when drawn up, but something, to coin a phrase, got lost in translation. Take the scene in which local heavy Onza (Gael García Bernal, yes, the 21st C. Latino Robbie Benson is Casa’s heavy) confronts brothers Armando (Ferrell) and Raul in a bar. After winning his pissing contest, he turns to Raul, takes a cigarette, lights it and proceeds to smoke. He then turns his attention the other way to Armando, takes another cigarette, lights it and proceeds to smoke that one, too. The humor here works … sort of. And then we audience members realize this is the highlight of the scene. I have no doubt this sounded like an absolute riot when it was written. On screen … less.
There are a few small moments I did love about Casa – the cheesy symbolic white panther (clearly a guy in a costume) who keeps showing up, the moment in the shootout where Raul gets hit twice, evaluates his situation and concludes another swig from the alcoholic beverage he’s holding is the right move, or the Ferrell and Rodriguez mounted side-by-side in tandem clearly atop horse-costumed vehicles; Ferrell accentuates the silly by deadpanning, “you ride very well.”
It wasn’t enough. It would have been better were it obvious exactly what Will was making fun of – Mexican films? Cheap films? Plots involving drug dealers? Subtitles? I suppose I don’t have to know the source of a parody or even that a comic film needs to be one. However, Casa de mi Padre left me feeling like there was a huge in-joke the producers didn’t bother telling to the audience. If this is funny … if it’s funny to let Will Ferrell speak Spanish and smash beer bottles on a set masquerading as the Mexican wilderness and not trying to hide that fact, can I ask, “why?”
Rated R, 84 Minutes
D: Matt Piedmont
W: Andrew Steele
Genre: Feature-length sketch
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Teenage boys at an overnight after two in the morning
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: “What the Hell is this crap?!”
