Casa di Mi Padre (2012)

Once again Will Ferrell plays a man-child, this time speaking subtitled Spanish in the story of two Mexican brothers trying to save their father's property--it's so bad it's laughable, with amateurish effects and a silly story. Mannequins are used as extras and stand-ins, and a stuffed white tiger (credited to Jim Henson's company) has lines. Ferrell last appeared in these pages in Everything Must Go, and his Armando Alvarez is dumb and lucky. Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna (both profiled in Rudo and Cursi) play a drug lord and Armando's brother, respectively. Everyone is playing it straight in this movie, even the beautiful Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez, who had a short series arc on Entourage). All of the cast except Ferrell and Nick Offernan (Parks & Recreation) are native Spanish speakers and recognizable character actors.

Matt Piedmont, an Emmy-winning writer for Saturday Night Live (1996-2002) (he also co-wrote two volumes of Saturday Night Live: The Best of Will Ferrell, among others), makes his feature directing debut with the script written by Andrew Steele, an Emmy-winning SNL writer from 1995-2008, and a writer on 10 episodes of Jon Stewart, and more. They both also worked on the series Funny or Die Presents... Ferrell and his usual comedy partner Adam McKay (father of baby Pearl in those silly landlady videos) are among the producers of this project (the ads say, "From the gringos who brought you Anchorman").

You can preview the soundtrack on this link. The opening credits feature a close-up on Christina Aguilera's lips as she sings a the title song (sounding quite James Bond-like). Other tracks include a Latin cover of Whiter Shade of Pale and, my favorite, a bouncy campfire song called Yo no se (that link gives you the whole song in a clip from the movie). The composers are Andrew Feltenstein (his feature debut) and John Nau (only a few credits). I counted 22 songs in the credits and the album has 20.

The critics agree with the first part of my assessment "so bad it's laughable:" on rottentomatoes it averages 45% (audiences have weighed in at 62). When it opened three weeks ago, it was playing all over town. We saw it last week, and now it has only two shows a day on one screen. A must-see for fans of Ferrell, it will probably have a longer life as a cult video. We're not sorry we saw it, but it's for a limited audience.