X-Ray Cat And BC Meet THE BROTHERS SOLOMON!!

Merrick here…
X-Ray Cat and BC wrote in with looks at THE BROTHERS SOLOMON – directed by Bob Odenkirk. If you haven’t seen the trailer for his forthcoming LET’S GO TO PRISION, it’s pretty funny…CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT. PRISON opens on November 22 – just enough time for Oscar contention! THE BROTHERS SOLOMON is Odenkirk’s directorial follow-up to PRISON. It should hit theaters ‘round April. I think this may be the first time I’ve used the word “directorial” since starting here at AICN. I feel all hoity-toity now…but kind of icky, too. We’d like to thank X-Ray Cat and BC for taking the time to send in these reviews…we appreciate their efforts.
First up: X-Ray Cat!

Hello, it's X-Ray Cat. I just got back from a test screening for THE BROTHERS SOLOMON, a new comedy directed by Bob Odenkirk, starring Will Arnett and Will Forte, and written by Forte. The film is about two brothers raised by a single dad into well-meaning but socially inept bachelors, who decide to step up their baby-making efforts when their father lapses into a coma after announcing his wish to see a grandchild before he dies. After completely failing at the traditional methods, they decide to use Craigslist to find a surrogate mother, played by Forte's fellow SNLer Kristen Wiig, who is having her own problems with her longtime boyfriend James, played by Chi McBride, who does an excellent job in single-handedly securing the film a hard R. On face value, the story is innocuous and cute, like a Tim Allen movie. But Forte's likable script makes it much more fun than that. His first attempt at feature writing is a logical evolution of the style he's been developing on SNL. If you've seen the Spelling Bee skit, you have a good idea of the sort of gently offbeat and refreshingly juvenile (as opposed to sophomoric)sense of humor he skews towards, and that's what you get here in spades; jokes that aren't so much dark as they are almost subversively quirky, like the early work of Steve Martin. Odd little moments such as both brothers discovering a mutual fetish for indigenous women, or the fact that they spent their childhood in the North Pole as their father's way of making up for their mother's death. It's the sort of left field stuff that only works in the right hands, and they are perfectly executed by the two Wills. This is mostly Will Arnett's show, and it's fantastic to see him getting prominent work in the sad, post-ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT world we live in today. Overall, it's a very enjoyable comedy that suffers from only a couple misfortunes. One is that Forte's style is a machine-gun effect, riddling the movie with a million tiny laughs and ultimately no big ones. And also, it's a very slight film, with not a lot on its mind, and a tiring tendency to let the story take a backseat to the jokes, leading to a lot of all-too-familiar subplots like a semi-romance between Arnett and his bitchy neighbor, a boring and unnecessary character played by the boring and unnecessary Malin Akerman. In terms of plot points and character development, there's not a lot of ground not already covered by other "two dumb guys" movies like DUMB AND DUMBER, and especially NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY, which could almost sue for certain similarities. This is only a rough cut though, and Bob Odenkirk was actually talking right in front of me to the editor about working on the pacing and certain jokes he didn't think worked. If you followed the RUN RONNIE RUN disaster, you know that Odenkirk puts more emphasis on the editing process than just about anybody, and with luck he'll be able to iron out the few kinks before its wide release. Either way, I highly recommend it as a fun, strange, light-hearted night at the theater.

Now, here’s BC…

Hey guys, BC here. Despite being told not to by the screening chick, I am "writing on the internet" about the new Bob Odenkirk film, BROTHERS SOLOMON, which had "one of its first" showings ever in Burbank tonight. Whats the point of going to a test screening if you can't tell fellow movie fans that you never met all about it? Lets get something out of the way here. The movie's 3 main ingredients are director Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show), writer/co-star Will Forte (SNL) and star Wil Arnett (Arrested Development). So if you weren't a fan of those shows, or think Will Forte is one of the worst current cast members of SNL (I happen to think he's the best - dim praise to be sure, but still), then you will hate hate HATE this movie. I counted maybe four jokes in the entire film that a general audience (read: people who flocked to the Meet the Fockers movies) would laugh at. The rest is just random, awkward, or just plain old dry humor that some might not even realize is an actual joke. Anyway, the film is about the two brothers (Forte and Arnett) who find out that their father is dying. Before he dies, he wants to see one of them have a child so he can die a grandfather. However, they were raised on the North Pole (because they asked him to live there, and he "gave them everything they ever wanted"), home schooled, etc. so they are socially awkward, to put it gently. The film opens with them demonstrating their romantic skills: Forte goes on a blind date and kisses the girl's father "to show respect"; Arnett hangs out at the grocery store, pays for random women's food, and then tries to hit on them. Like I said, awkward. So for a while they go about trying to have a kid the normal way (i.e. flat out asking women, including a hooker, to have their child), and eventually give up and look for a surrogate. Enter Kristen Wiig (not great on SNL, but surprisingly good here, playing the straight role), who agrees to have their child for 10 grand. However as time goes on, she becomes fearful of their abilities as fathers, and then in turn, wants to keep the baby for herself. I wont spoil the ending, except to say it all ends up rather predictably. But that doesn't matter. What matters is, the movie is hilarious, as long as you enjoy this brand of humor. Anyone familiar with Forte's work on SNL will not be surprised to learn that there is a great deal of homoeroticism between the two brothers, always hilarious. Complete randomness and wincing at their complete idiocy/naivety make for the rest of the laughs. It's a bit disjointed - Forte IS a sketch writer after all, so few scenes last more than 2-3 minutes, but it moves along nicely and there's rarely more than a minute or two between laughs. However I don't think the film will find a large audience. It'll be a tough sell, as there are few gags in the film that are "trailer funny". For example, the opening credits just feature Arnett and Forte in extreme closeup, smiling and making faces. Some of us laughed hysterically, but a guy behind me wondered aloud "what's funny about that?". Look, if Wil Arnett's face lighting up at the sight of his own screen credit doesn't make you laugh, you wont like the movie. Another gag has them renting a movie en route to their dad's deathbed (because they had a free rental coming to them). Most movies would have them rent a porno, or just some random title from the parent company's library, eschewing a joke all together. Instead, they get Finding Forrester, a movie people know but at the same time, probably never thought about once since it left theaters. To me, that's just random enough to be funny. Another gag has them whipping beer bottles at their baby's crib (actually some sort of makeshift cage) to prove that shards of glass cant get thru. Sure, it makes no goddamn sense at all, but its hilarious nonetheless. Arnett and Forte arent exactly stretching their acting muscle here, but they deliver what they need to, and carry the film easily (always a concern for TV stars, even moreso for "cult" tv stars). Chi McBride plays Wiig's boyfriend, a foul mouthed janitor, who gets in plenty of good laughs via his colorful use the word "fuck" (this is definitely an R film for language, but probably PG without it) In addition, there are a few good cameos, the most delightful one being Jenna Fischer as a would be mother for Arnett. Fellow SNL star Bill Hader shows up as a retarded guy. And Odenkirk appears in one of the film's few "general comedy" scenes, at an adoption agency where they ask if there's a return policy. My only real problem with the film is that it takes too long to explain why they are so strange, and in turn they come off as creepy for a bit (Arnett more so than Forte) because you have no idea why anyone would be so strange. I'd recommend they make an opening montage/voiceover with all of the North Pole/home schooling stuff explained away, so we can understand where they are coming from right from the start, rather than bits and pieces throughout the film. All in all, I'd recommend it, but only to folks who appreciate the talent pools' other work. To anyone else, it'll seem like a bad SNL skit movie (to be fair, one scene is pretty much a remake of a scene from Night At the Roxbury) with zero laughs. Indeed, the one new comment on the film's IMDB page was negative, saying it was unfunny (he liked Beerfest tho, so go figure). Release is in April. BC