dvd of the week
Paul Rudd has been in a string of broad, absurd comedies over the last five years that have made him a star but which have not been remotely insightful. Our Idiot Brother does not have the depth of a good Woody Allen or the painfully strong laughs of Judd Apatow’s best, but I appreciated the moral center of the film. Ned may be an “idiot” but he’s also an intensely good person; better than anyone else around him. Director Jesse Peretz, working from a mostly cliché-free screenplay by his sister Evgenia Peretz and David Schisgall, keeps this highly populated story propelled at a nice pace, but still allows the rather impressive cast moments to improvise, make faces, grumbles and asides. Rudd, however, is the star of this show, and he is the center of all the laughter. And since he’s just so damn likeable, so is the film.
