Casa de mi Padre

Movie rating: 2 Star

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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.

Review by Mike Sheridan | 17:32 | Friday 8th June 2012 | Movie Review

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Comments

• FilmBuff76

  Casa De Mi Padre is a one-joke movie that sprung from the mind of Will Ferrell. He thought it would be funny to do a film in which he speaks Spanish. Given that his stock has dropped in Hollywood (he's one of its least bankable stars), it's no surprise to find that the end result is forgettable fluff. Inspired by overly melodramatic Mexican soap operas, the film focuses on the unloved son of a rancher (Ferrell) who falls for his brother's fiancee (the eye-catching Genesis Rodriguez). Cue lots of arch acting, fake back-drops, cheap animatronic animals and deliberate continuity errors in a desperate attempt to make you laugh. The problem is that for a comedy, it's fatally unfunny. The audience I was with barely struggled to get past a mild chuckle. As a short film, it would be fine. But even at 85 minutes, it's a stretch. File it under F for Forgettable. Let's hope that Anchorman 2 will save Ferrell's faltering career.

  Posted 10:29 | Sat 9th Jun 2012

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