If you can't beat the house, be...The House.

"The House" is the directorial debut from Andrew Jay Cohen. Cohen is familiar with the comedy genre though, co-writing "Bad Neighbours", "Bad Neighbours 2", "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" as well as this film alongside Brendan O'Brien. The film stars Will Ferrell (Elf, Anchorman), Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation, Sisters), Jason Mantzoukas (The League) and a cameo from Jeremy Renner (Avengers, Arrival). "After the town takes away their daughter's college scholarship, a couple start an illegal casino in their friend's house to make back the money". The talent, both in front of and behind the camera, are comedy veterans. "The House" is set up to succeed...right?

"The House" is the biggest waste of a film I have seen in a while. How can comedy icons Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler star in a film that is criminally unfunny? How have writers Cohen/O'Brien put together of the most incoherent films I have ever seen? I think the studio could smell the stench of "The House" as it entered post-production and got heavily involved in editing it down; Who knows if the stuff left on the editing room floor would have made this film a tad batter? I was disappointed that I didn't get to see it at the cinema but in retrospect, it really isn't worth the price of a cinema ticket. I rented "The House" and feel robbed. Even fans of Ferrell and Poehler should be discouraged from watching it.

It starts of weak by introducing the central family at a college open day. They do not feel like a family at all; every line is cheesy and forced and there's no sense of familial chemistry. Little will the audience realise is that this one scene is the only development they are going to get that 'justifies' their later actions. The next plot device comes into play almost immediately- the council are unable to fund Alex's (Ryan Simpkins) college fees as promised...which is revealed ever-so unrealistically in front of the entire town. Then Kate (Amy Poehler) and Scott (Will Ferrell) jet off to Las Vegas with their friend, Frank (Jason Mantzoukas) (who has no last name by the way- excellent development!). This fittingly gives the couple (and Frank) the idea to open their own casino at home and make money to fund Alex's college fees. This high-concept idea could have worked well but the studio and the writers f**ked it up big time. The story just doesn't flow and there's no time to pause- it just jumps from plot device to plot device; It's like the film almost forgets it has to execute the narrative points it presents so enforces them very briefly. For example, the film's climax comes out of no where- no more than 10 minutes before, Jeremy Renner's Tommy is introduced as the villain of the film...via a news report. Conveniently, Tommy invades the casino shortly after his introduction and threatens to hold Alex hostage unless Scott and Kate pay him $300,000. Firstly, how did Alex stumble across the casino? Secondly, who the f**k is Tommy?- one of the men Scott and Kate punish for cheating warns them that he works for some man (who ended up being Tommy) but come on, there's got to be more to the big villain than that? I can only hope that it was the scenes that developed Tommy that were edited out of the film This is just one example of how mindless and illogical "The House" is- everything just happens because the script needs it to. Luckily for everyone involved, the theatrical edit of "The House" manages to loosely glue a story (even if it is a basic and underdeveloped one) together. That being said, this is a terrible example of story-telling, they should have just shelved it. 

The majority of the time, I find films starring Amy Poehler very funny ("Sisters" is one of my favourite comedies!) but "The House" is an exception to that rule. I laughed a total of...1 time. That was not even down to a witty or clever line, it was a moment of physical comedy involving Scott and Rachel (Jessie Ennis).  This moment was only funny because it revisited an intended joke from earlier in the film...it was funnier the second time and this demonstrated that the filmmakers do have some skill in abiding to the codes of the comedy genre (running jokes). However, this one moment was not a piece of comedy genius, it simply was the only time a laughed in one of the unfunniest films I have ever seen. It was even hard to tell when there was supposed to be a joke because some of the lines just weren't funny. Poehler and Ferrell had some moments that were intended to elicit laughs but caused me to cringe. What I didn't expect from "The House" was the violence - this is an unnecessarily violent film and I'm unsure why it decided to go down this route. Dumb comedies use sex and violence as easy ways to get a reaction from audiences - "The House" has plenty of sex 'jokes' but the violence isn't even funny. Scott and Kate stop being the caring parents who are breaking the law for the sake of their daughter and instead become sick and brutal individuals who take everything too far...but it's for their daughter's college fund so it's ok right? Credit should probably be given to the makeup team who did a nice job with the injuries. They might just be the only people working on this film who did their job properly. 

If you haven't gauged so far that I wasn't too impressed by Ferrell or Poehler then this next section should cement that for you. Ferrell and Poehler seem like a match made in heaven on paper, a film with the both of them in the leading roles should be comedy perfection. Fortunately, not many people have seen "The House" so this shouldn't affect their careers too much. However, there is no chemistry between the pair and this film reveals that their comedic styles do not match well together. Usually in a comedy, one character is the comedic relief who plays off of a more serious character. Neither Ferrell or Poehler seem to be the comedic relief or the serious one- they're almost running around like clowns who nobody finds funny. I can understand why they were attracted to this project- "Bad Neighbours" was a hit with critics and audiences so they probably wanted to work with Cohen and O'Brien. Amy Poehler may have worked well with Cohen and O'Brien's style alone as they are more in-line with her usual R-rated, sexual comedy. Ferrell is often scene playing a silly character involving lots of physical comedy and Cohen/O'Brien have little to no experience in that area.  Even though Ferrell and Poehler aren't great, it's easy to forgive them considering the lack of material they had to work with and the amount of this film that will likely remain unseen. The stakes aren't as high for anybody else in the film but "The House" definitely won't be a career-starter for anyone involved. 

"The House" is a dumb comedy that is thinly written and has been mashed together in the editing room. Amy Poehler and Will Ferrell should signify comedy genius but this actually ends up being a film they will live to forget. Weirdly, there's more violence in this film than there are funny moments which indicates a downhill turn for writers Cohen and O'Brien. "The House" is the biggest mess, the biggest waste of talent, the worst example of story-telling and the least funny film I have seen in a long time [DISCLAIMER- this review was written November 12th and I am yet to watch "Daddy's Home 2"]. Maybe you'll like it? Don't bet on it. 

28

/100

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