OUR IDIOT BROTHER: IDIOT IS AN APPROPRIATE TITLE

Have you ever seen a movie where you saw the trailer and thought man that looks funny...only to be completely disappointed once you saw the film? Welcome to OUR IDIOT BROTHER.

Ned Rochlin (Paul Rudd) is an innocent. Well not quite. I thought more of him as a waste head with visions of a grander world where no one does wrong to anyone else. It's the ideas that the hippies had in the sixties, a peaceful world where everyone can do what they want without affecting anyone else. Too bad reality always seemed to creep in.

As the film opens Ned finds himself arrested after selling grass to a local policeman. He was duped into doing so when the policeman convinced him he didn't have a problem with Ned selling drugs and needed it for a headache. Ned is convicted, spends his time in jail and when released comes home to find out his girlfriend dumped him for a new guy and doesn't want him around. Not only that, she refuses to give him back his dog Willie Nelson that she honestly could care less about. With no place to go, Ned returns to his mother's home and looks for ways to save up money so he can buy into the organic farm he and his girlfriend owned together.

Into the picture arrives Ned's three sisters and along with them their own problems which he places himself in the middle of as he roams from one to the other living there while working. The first is Liz (Emily Mortimer) who is a stay at home mom married to documentary film maker Dylan (Steve Coogan). The couple is the stereotypical by the book parents whose skills are learned through the things they read and hear about as opposed to living life. Their child must get into the right schools and behave the proper way even though he hates the things they make him do. Ned finds a connection with the youngster and they become quick friends but not quite so much with his folks. Ned takes a job working with Dylan carrying his equipment but one night finds him "shooting" his subject, a Russian ballerina, in the nude. Yes, they're having an affair and Ned accidentally leaks this to his other two sisters and causes a stir.

The next sister is Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), an up and coming writer for a classy magazine who is hoping for her big break. She has a chance to interview an heiress and the magazine wants her to get as much dirt from her as she can since the heiress was involved with a rather nasty fellow who videotaped their sexual escapades. Ned is working as Miranda's chauffer and inadvertently strikes up a conversation with the woman resulting in getting more information from her than Miranda does since the woman insists on not talking about the scandal. So determined to get the scoop and the job she covets so much, Miranda uses the information Ned got while simply talking to the woman, information he doesn't want her to use, that she'll go to all lengths to get it. This of course leads to Ned moving in with sister three.

Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) is a wanna be stand up comedian and part time nude model who is anything but funny. Ned moves in with her and her lesbian girlfriend but soon learns that Natalie is pregnant from a one night stand with the artist she poses for (and who Ned poses for as well). You can see where this is heading right now. Ned accidentally reveals all to the girlfriend as they attempt to retrieve Willie Nelson from his ex.

So here is the big problem with the movie. You find yourself in the company of a group of people that you could care less about. Not only could you care less about them, you find yourself loathing each and every one of them. I found myself wishing each of them would move on and I wouldn't have to hear any more about them. Ned is the sympathetic character here but he's such a dunce at times that you just want to slap him and say bud, wake up and smell the coffee.

I guess this means the actresses do a great job here. After all none of them can truly be as terrible in real life as they appear here, right? And Paul Rudd is always good in nearly everything he does. His Ned is a guy you'd love to spend time with, just not telling him anything about yourself.

The worst sin of all that this movie commits is that it never makes you laugh. That's pretty bad for a movie that was advertised as a comedy. Looking back I think I may have chuckled once or twice from start to finish, but being a comedy that's low praise. With all of the better movies out there to rent or watch this movie falls into that category of avoid at all costs. Only die hard Rudd fans will get anything out of this. Others will just be tossing good money away.

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