Note: appears in part on The Student Room

The "arrested development" comedy has always been a popular one, depicting the exploits of emotionally immature men-children who are thoroughly inept in every part of their adult lives. Step Brothers isn't exactly original as a result, but what it is is very, very funny, largely thanks to the superb interpretation of the material by funnymen Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly.

Brennan Huff (Ferrell) is a thirty-nine-year-old bum who has no job and still lives with his divorced mother, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen). Meanwhile, Dale Doeback (Reilly) is an ALWAYS unemployed forty-year-old who lives with his widower father, Robert (Richard Jenkins). When Robert is giving a lecture, he meets Nancy, and the two soon enough get together and are planning to marry. As a result, this means them both living together, meaning that Brennan and Dale will have to live together as step brothers, whilst both vying for the attention of the other parent and trying to out-do each other. Sound silly? Well, it is, but it's also highly amusing, if entirely dumb.

Like many of the recent Apatow factory of films, Step Brothers is a crude and crass, but also poignant and well intended - this isn't soullessly crude like you'll find in some of the Scary Movie films. There's a real heart to the picture that really does win out - it has a real message about honesty, acceptance, and the value of family (whatever form it comes in), intermittently interspersed throughout the pratfalls, toilet humour, and comic parlance between Ferrell and Reilly.

The amiably inane humour of Step Brothers is infectious and well-acted by Ferrell and Reilly. Frequently amusing and occasionally hilarious, this comedy is crude and poignant in equal measure, with a message that certainly isn't new, but nevertheless resonates.