There's comes a point in any comedian's life when they'll want to stretch themselves. Will Ferrell has done it before, wonderfully, in Stranger than Fiction, and here attempts something completely different. The fact that it's a parody isn’t new; the fact that it's almost entirely in Spanish is. Will Ferrell in a foreign language film? That's just crazy enough to work... it doesn’t by the way.
Ferrell plays a Mexican rancher (if you're chuckling, that's basically all you'll do) who's older brother (played by Diego Luna) returns home to the ranch, and brings trouble with him. He's a dealer of drugs y'see, and is embroiled in a war with other drug peddler, Gael Garcia Bernal. More complications arise in the form of Genesis Rodriguez's ridey stranger, who is due to be married to Luna's fledging gangster.
If you haven't seen the very funny parody flick, Black Dynamite, then I recommend you Netflix that shit right now. Casa de mi Padre takes a very similar approach of taking a seemingly straight up script and playing it for laughs. They do so with silly casting (Bernal's character should be older), and the challenge for the guys was obviously to attempt to pillage laughs and make it work regardless - it doesn’t.
I'm a big fan of Ferrell. I think he's a very talented actor who's actually very good at doing different kinds of comedy. Obviously more comfortable with the improvisational stuff, it doesn’t translate here (literally) and the script wasn't funny to begin with. Proof of that? Look at the cast; if these guys can't make you laugh then the problems lay elsewhere. Although Bernal has his moments.
Basically a five minute funny or die sketch stretched to feature length. This is an exercise in comedy for its lead, more so than an actual comedy.
