With apologies to the extremely funny The Campaign, first-time co-director John Morris and Sean Anders’s (Horrible Bosses 2, Sex Drive) Daddy’s Home is, ironically, Will Ferrell’s (Old School, Step Brothers) best-starring comedy role since 2010’s The Other Guys. It’s not a movie I thought I would particularly like and one that I had serious doubts about as much as 20 minutes in (I hadn’t laughed but maybe one time), but as the movie progressed, it got funnier and funnier. By its conclusion, it became a somewhat memorable movie that I wouldn’t put on the “A-shelf” comedy list but might find itself just a notch below. What made the movie work was the dynamics between Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (Lone Survivor, The Fighter), who didn’t have the same chemistry they had when they teamed partners in the buddy cop The Other Guys but were still pretty close. While Daddy’s Home was 100% completely predictable, it didn’t make it any less fun, and while Ferrell and Wahlberg weren’t exceptionally awesome in the scenes where they weren’t together, it more than made up for during the scenes where they shared screen time.
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Category Archives: Sean Anders
Horrible Bosses 2 (2014)
Horrible Bosses wowed audiences ($117 million) and won over most critics (69% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) in the summer of 2011. The unlikely comedy starred three guys in their late 30’s/early 40’s who absolutely hated the bosses they worked for so much that they plotted ways to get even with them for making their work lives so miserable. With an unlikely group that had TWO Best Actor Academy Award (Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx) winners from the last fifteen years signed on as supporting characters, this cast was a list of who’s who in Hollywood. The movie is hilarious and is very much worth a view. It seems, however, that the same critics who lauded the Horrible Bosses seem to be the same ones crushing Horrible Bosses 2 (just 35% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). While I wouldn’t go so far as to say the sequel was better than the first one, it was comparable in terms of laughs. While the formula is the same, the jokes are new and original, and the payoff is just as good as the original. With that said, I hope that this franchise quits while it’s ahead. I could see a potential Horrible Bosses 3 resulting in an utter disaster.
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