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The Brothers Solomon
Score: 50%
Rating: R
Publisher: Sony Pictures Home
                  Entertainment

Region: 1
Media: DVD/1
Running Time: 93 Mins.
Genre: Comedy
Audio: English, Spanish, Portuguese,
           Thai 5.1 Dolby Digital; French
           Dolby Surround

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish,
           Portuguese, Chinese, Korean,
           Thai


Features:
  • Commentary with Will Arnett and Will Forte
  • Deleted Scenes
  • The Making of The Brothers Solomon
  • The Fine Art of Creating a Specimen

The Brothers Solomon is best summed by its opening scene. Dean Solomon (Will Forte) arrives to pick up his date, Patricia (Ashley Johnson), who insists that he first meet her father. The two meet, shake hands and everything looks like its going great. Then, out of nowhere, Dean grabs Patricia's dad and lays a massive kiss right on his lips. As Dean pulls away, both Patricia and her father stare at Dean in a stunned, awkward silence. This is basically how the entire movie works out; there are a few genuinely funny moments that either go on way too long, or become so mind-numbingly absurd that it ruins the entire moment. This produces a similar awkward silence that makes the movie feel like it drags on for longer than 93 minutes.

The premise behind The Brothers Solomon is brilliant and there are times where the movie really seems like it could come together and be a great comedy. John (Will Arnett) and Dean are brothers who, after the grisly death of their mother, move to the North Pole and are home schooled by their father (Lee Majors). After their father goes into a coma, the two socially inept brothers become convinced that the only way to save their dad is by giving him a grandchild. Since neither is married, the two finally find a surrogate mother, Janine (Kristen Wiig) on Craigslist. From the start, things don't go quite as well as the two hoped. Janine's foul-mouthed boyfriend, James (Chi McBride), isn't too hot on the plan, or the brothers. On top of that, John ends up falling for his neighbor, Tara (Malin Akerman), a nursing student who is only interested in John because of his comatose father.

For the most part, The Brothers Solomon seems like it is trying to channel the same social ineptness that made Dumb and Dumber a fun movie. What worked for Dumb and Dumber doesn't work here because the characters aren't very endearing or particularly memorable. Although most of the dialogue is well-written, the delivery falls short of the mark. Will Arnett does a better job with his role than Will Forte, mostly because his character isn't that far off from his character in Arrested Development.

A number of extras are included on the disc, though considering how bad the movie is none are really worth watching.

I wanted to like The Brothers Solomon, mostly because I'm a big fan of Will Arnett. I even watched it multiple times hoping that there would be a Napoleon Dynamite effect where it took at least two viewings before the movie made sense. Even after two and a half viewings (I couldn't make it past the third), I could only conclude that it is a bad movie.



-Starscream, GameVortex Communications
AKA Ricky Tucker

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