The movie is trying to be awful-- on purpose. Just because it's suppose to be a parodying of Mexico soap operas, telenovela, and acid western, doesn't make it any good. When a movie is suppose to be making fun of a genre of awful movies, while itself has some problems can lead it to being not noticing itself being awful. It's a mediocre film making fun of really bad films. The movie starts with the opening song 'Casa De Mi Padre'. The theme is very good, and Christina Aquilera sings it well. It's remind me of a James Bond theme, and gives high hopes for the film. In the classic style of Spanish language novellas comes the story of Armando Alvarez (Will Ferrell), a lonely rancher whom has lived and worked on his father's ranch in Mexico his entire life. I find it interesting that Hollywood would make a Spanish-language comedy with a predominately Hispanic cast, only to cast the lead role as a recognizable white Male with the joke being that he playing a Mexican. Will Ferrell plays the role straight serious even going so far to learn Spanish. Yes, Will Ferrell is really speaking Spanish, there is no dub, there. I feel that Mr. Ferrell would be an epic serious actor if he wasn't trying to be funny in this. One of the most unfunniest thing about the film, is what happen when Armando as a child trying to protect his mother. As the ranch encounters financial difficulties, Armando's smarter and older brother Raúl (Diego Luna), shows up with his new sexy fiancée, Sonia (Genesis Rodriquez). He quickly finds himself in love with his brother's fiancée, despite the huge age different between them is kinda disturbing. The age different between Raul and Armando is silly as well, despite Armando's older brother being way younger than him in real life. He soon finds his brother is smuggling drugs, and his way of gaining money is putting his family in danger with Mexico's most feared drug lord, the mighty Onza (Gael Garcia Bernal). Diego Luna & Gael Garcia Bernal work great together, as both co-starred together in Y Tu Mama Tambien. Amando must fight for the woman he loves while trying to save his family. The movie plot takes itself so serious, that the audience has to be playing attention to the weird humor of the film. It's doesn't come at you, you have to look for it from toy cars, bad camera cuts, fake background, disappear shots, stuff fake animals puppets, and mannequins. I like playing spot the mannequins. They used like eight mannequins throughout the film. The cinematography is so awful and so well done; both intentionally. Still there are long distance throughout the film, without any gags. The whole film is in Spanish, so if you reading constant subtitles, you might not miss the many funny face gestures. Having subtitles in a comedy seems to make no sense since half of comedy is delivery. To me this movie fails because it was targeted to people that actually spoke and know the Mexican movie/tevenovela. This movie was targeted to the very small selective group, not for everybody. Since this movie was mostly shows in American theater, most of the audience probably didn't got half of the jokes, even those whom are Spanish-American might not know what tevenovela is, as well. If you live in Mexico then this movie will make you laugh. Check it out, if you want. This film is not in Blazing Saddles league of parody, but maybe in a couple years, people might come to like this movie more.
Review of Casa de mi Padre
