BEFORE: It's very strange going back to work after 10 or so weeks at home - even though I'm only working three days this week. Easing into things by working part-time, but something's still off - our studio is one of very few offices open in our building, plus the police have barricades sealing off our block because there's a police precinct on it. So I have to tell a cop what address I'm going to just to get there, there are new rules all around about where I can go in Manhattan and what I can do there. Major restaurants are still closed, and even when it comes to take-out places, some are open and some are not. A couple of my favorite lunch places are open, but with limited menus, and if they don't have anything I like, then I have to wander around from block to block looking for something to eat that I might enjoy.
The post office (whose motto, I believe, said something about delivering through snow, rain, gloom of night and any other condition) hadn't delivered mail to our office for two months, instead they sort of piled it up somewhere and just waited for NYC to re-open Phase 1. Did they think every office building would suddenly attract burglars who would notice the pile of mail by the front door? When I asked on Friday about getting the missing mail, a clerk at the post office told me to come back on Monday with a note on letterhead signed by the company president requesting service to resume, but when I did that on Monday, they told me our mail was already in another location, being sorted and prepped for delivery, which MIGHT happen later in the week. If I submitted the letter I had in hand, they'd have to move all that mail back to window services, and I couldn't get it until Friday. So I took a chance and did nothing, thankfully the backlog of mail all got delivered the next day, since I had also put a sign up in our building lobby with our suite number, stating that we were open for business.
Ryan Gaul carries over from "Between Two Ferns: The Movie", and as promised, I'm back on Owen Wilson films. He's going to be tough to beat this year, now that I'm past the halfway point and about a month away from being 2/3 done with Movie Year 12. But I've still got some documentaries coming up in July, so you never know, with enough archive footage any 1960's rock star or popular talk-show host could still pull out a win.
THE PLOT: Upon learning that their mother has been lying to them for years about their allegedly deceased father, two fraternal twin brothers hit the road in order to find him.
AFTER: I guess unofficially it's "road trip" week, since Zach Galifianakis took a road trip with his camera crew to make shows on the way across the country to Los Angeles, and before that, the cast and crew of "The Other Side of the Wind" (the fictional one) all took a road trip from the shooting set to the director's house in Arizona to watch a rough cut of the film. But my focus is shifting towards Father's Day, obviously, and here two brothers go off on a quest to find their biological father, after their mother initially tells them that it's football legend Terry Bradshaw.
I guess if you can get Terry Bradshaw to agree to play a fictional version of himself, then you probably roll with that, right? But there are some questionable narrative choices here, like using the nature of the "free love" movement of the mid-1970's to showcase a female character who doesn't really know (or won't say) who fathered her children. Most people get a little creeped out just thinking about the fact that their parents had sex at some point, these brothers have to deal with the fact that their mother slept around quite a bit, and that many of the men she slept with are willing to relate graphic stories about her lovemaking skills. I mean, sure, go feminism, and if men can brag about their sexual escapades women should feel free to do that, too, but when that's your MOM, probably a little bit of the sex stuff is more than enough.
It turns out that one brother, Peter, is a big Steelers fan, and is totally in awe of Terry Bradshaw, proud to start thinking of himself as the former quarterback's son. The brothers fly to Miami, track the NFL star down at the opening of his new car dealership, and Terry's happy to meet them (again, after relating a few stories about how hot their mother was, and stuff they did together.). Terry's wife, however, is not so thrilled that her husband's brought home two complete strangers that he's treating like prodigal sons. Well, one, anyway, Terry chooses to ignore Kyle, even constantly calls him by the wrong name. He does understand what twins are, right?
So that's it, the boys find their father, a famous sports star who accepts them, and everything works out, movie over after the first half hour. No way, it's not that easy, this opening bit was just a jumping off point, because they find some reason why Terry Bradshaw couldn't possibly be their father - this sets up the pattern for the rest of the film, because this odyssey is actually going to take the brothers around half of the country, eliminating several parental candidates before they finally uncover the truth about their heritage. And wouldn't you know it, each potential father (who again, slept with their hot mom) has JUST enough reason why he can't be their father, plus remembers JUST enough information to send them off to their next candidate. Hey, if you can remember the mid-1970's, it turns out maybe you weren't really doing it right.
I don't know, after these guys were wrong twice, don't you think they would have called up their mother and said, "Hey, mom, what's the deal?" or "Hey, why did you lie to us about the first guy?" For that matter, this story feels really outdated because we have these things called DNA tests now, and perhaps that's where this story should have started. For one thing, any celebrity like a famous sports star would probably have to deal with people claiming him as an errant parent all the time, and his reaction probably should have been to tell potential offspring to contact his attorney AND then take a DNA test to prove it. Just saying. I also think these brothers should have done one of those genetic profiling tests in the first place, that could have told them a lot about who their father was, and saved everybody a lot of time, myself included. So big NITPICK POINT there.
But being out on the road together does give these brothers the chance to settle a bunch of their long-standing disputes. Even though they're fraternal twins, they have VERY different approaches to life, one's an uptight divorced proctologist and the other's a free-wheeling Hawaiian surfer dude who prefers to let the universe bring good fortune his way - now see if you can guess which brother Owen Wilson plays. Yep, you got it.
But this was a big problem for me, the two actors look nothing alike, so how am I supposed to believe that they're fraternal twins? Was their mother's ovum fertilized by sperm cells from two men? It's extremely rare, but I've heard that it's technically possible, plus this is sort of backed up by their mother's long list of sexual partners. Still, I'd expect better choices to be made by a casting director in finding two actors who somewhat resembled each other. Damn, if only Owen Wilson had a brother who was also an actor - but I guess we shouldn't wish for things we can't have. Wait a second.... Originally Jason Sudeikis was cast to be in this film, and I could probably have bought him as Ed Helms' brother, why didn't they go that way with it? I guess because Helms looks a bit older?
I liked some of the paths this film went down, such as the brothers' debate over whether the universe is subtly pushing them in the right direction, or whether doing good deeds produces good karma as a reward, but while there was a comedy payoff on some things (like the results from picking up the hitchhiker) there was no payoff on others (like the hotel clerk who can't speak above a whisper for some unspecified reason). So the end result was rather hit-or-miss, and if you find it's more miss than hit, I could certainly understand and respect that.
Also starring Owen Wilson (last seen in "Are You Here"), Ed Helms (last seen in "The Clapper"), Glenn Close (last heard in "Tarzan 2: The Legend Begins"), J.K. Simmons (last seen in "Spider-Man: Far From Home"), Katt Williams, Terry Bradshaw (last seen in "Hooper"), Ving Rhames (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - Fallout"), Harry Shearer (last seen in "The Last Laugh" (2016)), June Squibb (last seen in "Other People"), Christopher Walken (last seen in "Stand Up Guys"), Jack McGee (last seen in "The Finest Hours"), Ryan Cartwright (last seen in "Independence Day: Resurgence"), Ali Wong (last heard in "Ralph Breaks the Internet"), Retta (last seen in "Good Boys"), Jessica Gomes, Katie Aselton (last seen in "Bombshell"), Debra Stipe, Zachary Haven, Robert Walker Branchaud (last seen in "The Leisure Seeker"), B'nard Lewis, Robert Pralgo (last seen in "The 15:17 to Paris"), Niki Davis, Andrew Wilson (last seen in "How Do You Know"), Taylor Treadwell, Jim France (last seen in "Selma"), Brian Huskey (last seen in "Opening Night") with archive footage of Mariska Hargitay, Edward Hibbert (last heard in "Mary Poppins Returns")
RATING: 5 out of 10 bottles of BBQ sauce
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