The Brother Solomon

With The Brothers Solomon, director Bob (Mr. Show) Odenkirk adds to his cinematic slump. We’re past the point of blaming the system.

One assumes free will was involved when he agreed to shoot this Farrelly-shaded script — written by co-star and SNL nonentity Will Forte — about a pair of sheltered brothers hoping to stir their comatose father by making a baby in a lady. Funny moments bloom and die, thanks mostly to Arrested Development’s Will Arnett, but they don’t warrant your wading through the beige resignation of the rest. I wish Odenkirk had gone for something characteristically weird and angry instead of this Ephron-stained heartwarmth. To judge from this film and last year’s Let’s Go to Prison, he doesn’t know how to express his ideas at feature length, or else he’s a wimp who wilts before the gutless demands of Hollywood moneymen. Neither is a good excuse.