541. Our Idiot Brother (2011)

Starring: Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel

Director: Jesse Peretz

Running Time: 90 mins

Our Idiot Brother is an American film about a happy, but stupid, optimist who, after having spent a spell in jail for accidentally selling a police officer drugs, begins to unintentionally wreck his caring sisters’ lives.

Well, this film may be as stupid as its title character, but its surprisingly warm and good fun, that avoids being too irritating at points while maintaining a strong degree of farce and idiocy that keeps it largely entertaining.

However, this film is not particularly high quality. None of the jokes are completely laugh-out-loud hilarious, it’s all pretty stupid and predictable, and its story is unbelievably repetitive, and although it manages to avoid being extremely annoying, it eventually grows quite tiring and dull, with its lack of top quality comedy.

The other big problem with this film is its cast. The actors all put in warming and convincing performances, however there’s far too much going on, there are too many characters with completely different problems going on in their lives, and sticking a complete idiot at the centre of all of this chaos doesn’t make it any easier to watch.

But don’t let its predictability and eventual dullness get you down. For something very simplistic, with a lot of great fun actors, and an overall very warming atmosphere to it, you can’t go wrong with this film.

As the film’s tagline says about Our Idiot Brother: “Everybody has one”, the main character, played by Paul Rudd, is hugely likeable and relatable. His innocent and overwhelmingly optimistic attitude to pretty much everything, from his family’s affairs to his bizarre relationship with his parole officer, makes him a simple character that you cannot help but adoring, which really helps to make this film a whole lot less irritating than it could be.

Overall, I’ll give this a 6.8, because although its story was quite poor and predictable, it was a largely warming, enjoyable and simple viewing experience.