Casa de mi Padre

An ultimate vanity project, Will Ferrell has taken a ridiculous Saturday Night Live skit and fleshed it out into a desperately unfunny feature film—in Spanish. Living on his father's ranch in Mexico, ne'er-do-well Armando Alvarez (Ferrell) isn't terribly bright. But he suspects that something's amiss when his smarter, more successful, younger brother Raul (Diego Luna), shows up at the hacienda with his sultry fiancée, Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez), promising to pay all of the debts of their formidable father (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.). It turns out that Raul's international financial acumen has come at a price, as the respected Alvarez family finds itself at odds with notoriously trigger-happy La Onza (Gael Garcia Bernal), Mexico's most feared drug baron. Not surprisingly, Armando falls in love with Sonia, who has a troubled history with La Onza. Desperate to replicate Spanish telenovelas, the film throws in a cheesy, clunky, cliché-filled flashback revolving around intended incest and accidental matricide, along with additional drug-dealing scenes, featuring Nick Offerman as a stereotypically bigoted DEA agent. Directed by Matt Piedmont, Casa de mi Padre finds Ferrell speaking Spanish with doofy, exaggerated diction (and, unfortunately, singing as well) in an intentionally amateurish and tacky production that features animal puppets, the obvious use of miniatures, rear-projection of two riders on horseback, and even an artsy reflection shot that includes the image of a crew member. Not recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by star Will Ferrell, director Matt Piedmont, and writer/producer Andrew Steele, a “making-of” featurette (16 min.), deleted scenes (20 min.), an interview with costar Pedro Armendariz Jr. (4 min.), in-film commercials (3 min.), the “Fight for Love” music video with Ferrell, and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a disappointing film.] (S. Granger)