How Did ‘Step Brothers’ Go From Punching Bag to Comedy Classic?

In 2008, the late Roger Ebert wrote the following:

Sometimes I think I am living in a nightmare. All about me, standards are collapsing, manners are evaporating, people show no respect for themselves. I am not a moralistic nut. I’m proud of the X-rated movie I once wrote. I like vulgarity if it’s funny or serves a purpose. But what is going on here?

The film that provoked such an existential crisis in the nation’s foremost film critic? Step Brothers, the absurd man-child comedy that starred Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as adult morons who are thrust into an arrested-adolescent sibling rivalry when their parents get married late in life.

Coming on the heels of hits Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Step Brothers was the third consecutive pairing of Ferrell with director Adam McKay. The cast is a powerhouse, featuring A+ character actors like Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen and ascendant comedy stars like Adam Scott and Kathryn Hahn. But while not a flop (it managed to just cross $100 million, nearly $50 million less than Talladega Nights), it was relatively dismissed by critics, many of whom took  Ebert’s approach to the film’s pristine juvenilia.

The sting of the Step Brothers critical rebuke still lingers. Just recently, Will Ferrell talked about it on Bill Simmons’ podcast:

Of course we’re talking about the initial critical reaction to Step Brothers now because, nine years later, the film has an altogether different reputation. Years of repetition on cable and a general re-assessment of the Will Ferrell Era has elevated Step Brothers from the ranks of execrable idiocy to sublime idiocy. The AV Club ranked it among its 50 Best Comedies of the 2000s. Complex ranked it the 13th best comedy of all time. Three years ago, Rolling Stone ran a critical re-appreciation of the film. Last year, in the wake of director Adam McKay’s Oscar nomination for The Big Short, Slate opined that, Oscar nod or no, Step Brothers was his best movie.

Looking back on the reception for his film, Adam McKay says he wasn’t surprised that the initial reaction was negative. “Ferrell and I talked before we made the movie and both agreed that we were fine with getting not so great reviews,” McKay told Decider. “We knew it would be one of the most absurd and over-the-top movies we’d done to that point. And the second you have a fart joke in a film anyone knows it’s not going to be a critic’s darling (except for Blazing Saddles of course).”

But the vehemence of the Ebert review took McKay aback. “What did surprise us was how critics like Ebert thought we were advocating the behavior of Dale and Brennan. We made the movie to examine how American men had been infantilized by consumer culture. I know that sounds super heady, but it was definitely where we coming from. That’s why we loved Elbert’s review so much. It was written like it was from Richard Jenkins’s character’s perspective. You could feel his frustration and anger with where American culture was headed.”

The fact is, Step Brothers wasn’t exactly made with expectations of critical acclaim anyway. “Given the fart jokes, licking dog crap, and balls on a drum set, we expected much worse,” McKay offers. “And that’s what was so freeing about making that movie; we decided we didn’t care. We really tried to make a movie with heft, satire and story with Talladega Nights. With Step Brothers, we just said fuck it. I think that’s why it’s my favorite collaboration with Ferrell. And because we were so loose I also think that’s why it reflects the times so well. Is there any doubt Dale and Brennan would love Trump? And their parents would hate him?”

It’s not just initial critical reaction that needs to be sifted through for a movie like Step Brothers. “Studio marketing is so loud and powerful it takes awhile for it to fade away so the movie can just be watched “clean” and without background noise,” McKay says. “Movies like Office Space, Shawshank Redemption, Hot Rod, Idiocracy, and Goodfellas all were recognized as significant after their theatrical release. Even with The Big Short, which was as good a release as I’ve personally ever had, I’m very curious to see how it plays 2 or 3 years from now.”

Even if it took the critics a while, Step Brothers was a big hit along a more anecdotal metric: fans quoting it in bars. “Even though it was initially dismissed by critics,” McKay says, “I started hearing it quoted right away by people on the street, online and in bars.”

Seeing the critical consensus come around, though, is undoubtedly gratifying. “Any time the film critics and pundits acknowledge a movie where testicles are rubbed on a drum set, isn’t that a good thing?”

Where to stream Step Brothers