Step Brothers

Step Brothers should answer any doubts as to whether Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are cinema’s reigning lovable losers. A late-life marriage turns two 40-year-old live-at-home mamalukes into the odd couple of the title. Brennan (Ferrell) and Dale (Reilly) don’t have jobs; they collect issues of Hustler, watch TV incessantly, and are coddled beyond reason by Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen as the de facto Mr. and Mrs. Brady. The man-boy shtick never finds its feet until the pair are challenged by Brennan’s overachieving blood brother, Derek (Adam Scott, adding complexity to his douchebag extraordinaire), who wants to sell their adolescent paradise (the house). And since this is a Judd Apatow (Knocked Up) venture (he wrote it with director Adam McKay), farting, male genitalia, and an impetuous sex act set the standards of good taste. 96 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Circle/Chestnut Hill + Suburbs