New on Netflix -The House (film): Bad Ferrell film

Will Ferell is one of my favorite comedy actors of all time. Three of my most often quoted films are his in Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers. He has a few turds mixed in his filmography but I even enjoyed his only non comedy film I am aware of, Stranger than Fiction.

While not a new film, it is new to Netflix just like the title suggests. there are spoilers ahead

That being said, The House was pure garbage

The story here is that Scott and Kate Johnson (Ferrell and Poehler) are normal parents to a academically gifted daughter who gets into a prestigious college that was meant to be on a scholarship. When said scholarship is pulled at the last minute, they don't know how they are going to pay for her schooling.

Through talking to their gambling addicted friend Frank (Jason Mantzoukas) they come up with the idea to run an unlicensed casino in his house in order to make enough money for their daughter's tuition.

There are a lot of reasons why this movies isn't funny but a great deal of it simply lies in the fact that the jokes are not good. Think about how there was at least a motif in Anchorman of Ron Burgandy being a undeserving arrogant womanizer or how Ricky Bobby was an idiot that was just a good race car driver. Scott (again, Ferell) has no real character other than the fact that he is not good at math (and they return to this characteristic entirely too often.)

The other reason that this film is dumb is because it is completely impractical. They are able to make a ton of money off of people they are friends with in their local community yet all of these people keep coming back and no one talks to the police? Come on now. They open a disco in their backyard and none of the neighbors complain?

The idea that they all gradually turn into fearless gangsters with the entire community afraid to cross them is supposed to be funny, but it just isn't... nor is it believable since none of them are physically imposing. I'm probably overthinking this but even the one-liners are just stupid.

What else can I say really? This film has no redeeming qualities and even made Nick Kroll boring. It squanders a talented cast with a poor script that has no plausibility whatsoever. The story progression is dumb as are the eventual "bad guys" that are introduced into the plot. This movie ended up losing millions against its $40 million budget. Honestly, when I watch this film I can't imagine what they spent the $40 million on other than perhaps the 10+ million that Ferrell probably demands as a salary.