Little Brother | Official Trailer | Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nPOSITIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite an overwhelming abundance of detracting creative components ridding Little Brother of any semblance of originality or hilarity, there are some dependably vital influences to the film’s integrity that ultimately keep it from being one of the worst films and comedies of the released year, beginning with the professionalism exuded from the collective ensemble, who each bring a lot of personality and energy to their respective portrayals. While nothing that John Cena and Eric Andre are doing could even accidentally be classified as challenging or contortive to the expectations of their audience, they each bring an open-armed embrace of their approach towards crude slapstick that not only legitimizes the engagement, regardless of its juvenile sensibilities, but also carves out a lived-in element of battle tested chemistry between the two that is fun to experience, even if the gags feel predictably telegraphed from miles away, and considering Cena is offered the rare but formidable chance to play the straight character in the comedic set-up, it allows incremental insights to the kind of emotional range that he will someday unload to a very fortunate director, in turn once again elevating a less than desirable project with the kind of instinctual responses and charisma that surmised occasional laughter in the air of his responses to such exaggerated material. Speaking of laughter, the film is the latest comedy to conjure a post-credits gag reel involving the untimely outtakes of its involving ensemble, and in utilizing such executes three times as many laughs as anything throughout the 90-minute engagement, particularly Andre’s unforeseen articulation with improvisation that enhanced a couple of noteworthy deliveries in scenes that I wish were left maintained in the film’s finished product. This three minute sequence certainly conveys the fun that everyone attached were having in a nonsensical exploiting, particularly against reacting to lines so ridiculously written that they can’t help but respond naturally to what’s asked of them, but beyond that proves that Spicer’s tumultuous direction would’ve been aided tremendously by increments of improvisation to push further and dig deeper with some of its most impactful set pieces, leaving us a briefly limited insight into the film that we could’ve gotten under much different and more favorable circumstances. Speaking of that aforementioned runtime, for the first time in nearly forever, a Netflix produced property opts out of overstaying its welcome, instead remaining firm on the necessity of its storytelling, which allows it to maintain unflinching urgency in the depths of its pacing. While ineffective comedy always makes a movie drown on incessantly, Spicer’s greatest strength as a commanding hand seems to be the firmness of his objective pertaining to responsible awareness on just how far to push each scene, without taking away the importance of the constructing narrative itself, and considering Little Brother is very much a film that I unabashedly didn’t enjoy, the director’s decision to keep from testing the patience of the audience is most vital in maintaining their vested interests, without anything that feels constrictively hindering on the integrity of an engagement that already faces an uphill climb on other unfortunate aspects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEGATIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The latest edition of Netflix aligning polar opposites for a derivatively reheated plot amounts to very little in the depths of disparaging humor and compelling narrative journeys, the likes of which both fall incredibly flat towards mustering an entertaining engagement with its off-beat angling, leaving Little Brother the red-headed stepchild descendent of the 1993 Bill Murray comedy What About Bob? I make that randomized comparison because not only does Little Brother involve an anxiously idiotic man invading intrusively upon a family man coming into his own lucrative opportunities, but also involves each of the family man’s peers turning against him in ways that gaslight the head of the household into feeling like the nutcase, and while that idea could be fun if executed with some elevating comedy, the kind of gross-out, tasteless gags manufactured here are the outdated variety of shock humor that once dominated during the late 90’s and early 2000’s, without anything closely resembling structured spontaneity to make these silly realities transpire with any semblance of naturality. While the film was able to muster two meaningful laughs pertaining to the nuance of a reaction, the majority of the engagement bombs insufferably in Spicer’s constant attempts to flesh out the worst case scenario of every situation, a direction made even worse by Andre’s distinct brand of offsetting humor that combines vulgarities with bodily functions, in order to get as loud and crude as fantastically imagined. While Cena and Andre are seemingly up for anything, the structuring and sequencing of every moment feels artificially transparent to the universe within the fictional narrative, where zeroed in plot devices are typically utilized in order to conjure some unforeseen disaster towards their incorporation, and considering the film becomes overwhelmed by them consistently by the film’s midway point, it leaves its structure feeling slightly episodic to the overall bigger picture, in the kind of film where stakes and consequences never last further than they scene from which they originally emanated from. This aforementioned tastelessness for material does its job constructing a juvenile tone to the movie’s atmosphere, but even it becomes compromising by some jarring tonal shifts during the film’s third act climax, which has the audacity to evoke tender-hearted emotionality in a film involving Andre tasting his own urine, and Cena getting his salad tossed. I’m someone who always appreciates heart to a movie marred by mayhem, but nothing cultivated during a glaringly evident third act breakup feels like it comes from a genuine place of meaning with regards to these morally shallow characters, in turn injecting a groanworthy shoehorned lesson that somehow deconstructs every toxic trait of our navigating protagonist, for no other reason simply than just other people have it worse than him. On the subject of those characters, there isn’t a moral compass in the whole expansive bunch, but in terms of relatability, the movie left me with the unfortunate task of saddling closest to Cena’s stuffy materialist, as a result of a naive surrounding family and corresponding co-workers who overlook everything from destruction of property to residential sex, as a means of establishing how misunderstood Andre’s Marcus is. Keep in mind that this is long before anything about Marcus’ tragic backstory is revealed as a bombshell to them or the audience, and instead as the initial ice-breaking instance that they have while inviting him into their home. It makes each of them feel naive in ways that are anything but sincerely gracious, and while Cena’s Rudd is certainly no better with the petty jealousies and workaholic determination that drives his daily routine, in reality he’s the only person repeatedly accosted by Marcus’ irresponsible actions, leaving me frequently immersing myself in the plight of the character, which either would’ve immediately seen me kicking this guy’s ass, or at the very least strangle him to the point of blacking out. While most people would consider characters unimportant to a comedy, there’s so much about these people that make it difficult to invest in their respective conflicts, let alone empathize with them to the point of support, and while I’m unabashedly a fan of both John Cena and Eric Andre, they are saddled with the kind of confounding characterization that does little to meet their performances halfway, especially Andre’s Marcus being such an annoying disturbance lacking any subtlety to the movie’s foundation. Finally, if I couldn’t enjoy this film on an entertaining aspect, I was hoping to at least enjoy it on a technical one, especially considering the movie’s cinematographer, Brandon Probst, has conjured such atmospheric distinguishment in the shots that he’s solicited towards Can You Ever Forgive Me?, The Disaster Artist, and An American Pickle, to name a few. Unfortunately, little about the film’s presentation exudes any semblance of ambitiously challenging photography or meaningful framing to balance the thematic heft of the storytelling, and while I’m not exactly looking for masterful artistry in a John Cena and Eric Andre movie, there’s ample opportunity to experiment with the emotional dexterity of the characters, especially within the animated personality of the latter driving the manic energies of the comedy. Like many Netflix helmed productions before it, there’s such a cheaply glossy artificiality to the presentation that makes the imagery such a chore to even casually interpret, and considering the editing goes directly out of its way to overcomplicate the fluidity of basic one-on-one conversations that should feel comfortably relaxed and restrained in the visual deviation between one character to the other, the production instead ramps up textures and tangibility towards feeling intrusively chaotic, making this feel very much like one of Netflix’s action movies of the week, but without any symbolic purpose towards feeling that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OVERALL
Little Brother is a lackadaisically lazy and raunchily cringe comedy that is elevated significantly by the committed dependability of John Cena and Eric Andre etching out a believably battle-tested chemistry to their confrontational dynamic, yet deflated by limited laughs and predictably exaggerated set pieces that annihilate any semblance of situational nuance or moral levity to jarringly abrasive tonal shifts that surmise unjustifiably. While Netflix has certainly done worse with less when it comes to crafting some of the year’s worst comedies, the abundance of talent in front of and behind the lens offers very little justifiable reason for a film to feel this thoughtlessly conceived and clumsily contrived, leaving this an outdatedly tasteless mess that requires more than brotherhood to set its ambitious outlook on a straight and narrow path towards prosperity<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Grade: 4.2 or D-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Directed By Matt Spicer Starring – John Cena, Eric Andre, Michelle Monaghan The Plot – A famous real estate agent’s (Cena) life is disrupted when his eccentric little brother (Andre) unexpectedly reappears, sending his once peaceful existence into a tailspin of crudeness and destruction Rated R for sexual content, adult language throughout, some drug use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9755"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9757,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9755\/revisions\/9757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}