MOVIE REVIEWS: OUR IDIOT BROTHER

With a title like Our Idiot Brother, you’d expect the critics would have had their knives out for it. If they had, they’ve put them away. And many are crediting star Paul Rudd and director Jesse Peretz for lifting a film with what they regard as a so-so plot out of mediocrity. Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times puts it this way: “The comedy isn’t always as crisp as it should be, but Peretz has the perfect partner-in-crime in Rudd. The actor has an uncanny ability to create characters that feel completely devoid of avarice, angst or anything unseemly.” Claudia Puig in USA Today writes, “This is Rudd’s film. His inherent likability and genial manner are ideal for the character. He plays laid-back especially well.” And Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times states flatly, “The movie wouldn’t work without Paul Rudd.” This is no comedy classic, most critics agree. It merely “floats along nicely,” in the words of Mick LaSalle in the San Francsico Chronicle. Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer calls it “a suitably laid-back and goofy affair.” A.O. Scott in the New York Times, while calling the movie “a raucous celebration of male immaturity,” and remarking that “a handful of scenes … are sharp, funny and surprising,” nevertheless concludes that “the filmmakers mostly look for humor in obvious, picked-over places.”