Our Idiot Brother

Expectations:
I personally think that Paul Rudd is a brilliant actor, just not a comedic actor. I don't understand why guys like him and Jason Bateman, for example, waste their talent in comedies. Rudd and Bateman always play the normal guy alongside the stupid, funny guys. When you aren't funny, you shouldn't be in a comedy, period. With that being said, I really thought this might be a role that Rudd would use to break out of his normal guy spell. Any title that contains the word "idiot" certainly has potential to contain one goofy character, and this time it was supposed to be Rudd. I didn't expect too much with the movie, but I missed the movies dearly so I needed something to watch this weekend.

Plot:
In the opening scene, Ned (Paul Rudd) is arrested for selling weed to a police officer, which is certainly an idiotic thing to do. You are then taken to the day he gets out of jail several months later. Then you find out what is going on in one of his sister's lives. Then the next sister. Then the next sister. Then him. Then all of them together. Then one sister. Then one sister. What I'm trying to show is that the plot was way WAY too busy early on. Eventually, each of the sister's lives are influenced by Ned in a negative way. This really was a good way to show how Ned could easily screw things up, but the plot as a whole lacked laughs. Don't get me wrong, there were funny parts, but I just didn't feel like the movie was meant to be funny. It turned out to be more about family, which is a great thing. It just wasn't what I expected.

Characters:
Of course the main character was Ned, but he didn't really have enough of the movie's focus, in my opinion. The sisters, Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), and Liz (Emily Mortimer), really were the focus of the movie. Each sister had her own little plot, which stole from Ned's ability to be the focus of the film. I don't know if that makes any sense, but it does in my head. Ned's biggest problem was that he was too nice, a result of his living at a peaceful, hippy, dope-smoking farm. While he did make dumb decisions and do funny things, I was expecting him to be completely oblivious to the world around him. It turned out that he made the world just a little bit better with his idiocy. He just didn't seem quite dumb enough for me.

Best Character: Billy, played by T.J. Miller (She's Out of My League), was probably the funniest character in the movie. He was one of the guys who lived on the hippy farm where Ned originally lived. I really thought that Rudd's character was going to be more like Miller's. The movie probably would have been better if Billy were the main character rather than Ned.

Worst Character: Jeremy, played by Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation), was the only real mismatch in the plot. As I said, each sister had their own plot, but Jeremy really gave Miranda a second plot as her love interest. He was funny, but I just didn't see why he was necessary.

Conclusion:
I thought that maybe, just maybe, Rudd might be a bit goofier than normal and make this movie funny. While this was not really the case, the movie didn't turn out as bad as you might expect. The story really showed how important family is to everyone, including the idiots. It really made for a nice story, just not the one I was expecting. In my opinion, the movie really should have been called "My Three Idiot Sisters," but I don't get to choose. The cast was very good, and there was only the one out of place character, as mentioned above. Paul Rudd remains unfunny, as I give Our Idiot Brother 2.39 out of 5 stars.