[yasr_overall_rating]
A mild-mannered radio executive strives to become the best stepdad to his wife’s two children, but complications ensue when their freewheeling and freeloading real father arrives, forcing him to compete for the affection of the kids.
“Daddy’s Home” is interesting to say the least. The film follows a radio executive named Brad Whitaker (Will Ferrell) in his attempts to win the adoration of his step-children. Problems arise when Dusty (Mark Whalberg) shows up aiming to reclaim his family.
The first half of the film was great, it was filled with creative introductions and had an interesting tone that allowed you to pick a side, Dusty or Brad. Once the plot was set though, things started to unravel. It felt as though there was too much going on in the movie and that there was an over-allocation of examples of how one father figure could be better than the other. The movie turned from a non-stop laugh into a testosterone jab fest that didn’t seem to end. I like long films if they’re done right, it allows me to stay in a setting that I never want to disappear. This story however, created a setting and wouldn’t allow you to leave or get to the end of the arc until everyone in the audience understood that these guys had to one up each other in order to get the crown no matter how clichéd the instances became.
I am a big fan of the Wahlberg-Ferrell duo, they seem to hit every funny bone on the way down but this time it just seemed as if they were trying too hard to make a sub-par script even remotely good. It was an average movie which is okay I guess but it was a letdown from what I expected from the two. Two heads should be better than one but this time, it was just too much.
In theaters December 25th
