The tagline-They want to put a baby in you. The premise-two brothers need to find a woman to impregnate, no strings attached, and deliver a baby into the world to keep their disappointed and comatose father from leaving it. It sounds similar at first to this summer’s earlier hit Knocked Up, but upon closer acquaintance, this film carries none of the honesty or charm of its predecessor.
One can guess that The Brothers Solomon (Sept. 7, Sony Pictures) is not trying to sell you on its plot, but on the fame surrounding its lead actors. Will Arnet, best known as illusionist G.O.B. Bluth from Fox’s Arrested Development, plays assertive brother John. Will Forte, current Saturday Night Live cast member, wrote and played Dean in Solomon.
In the film’s first scene, John and Dean declare their adventure into dating “is going to be great.” After a dozen lines of dialogue, that statement is hard to believe.
The opening credits are basically a microcosm of the whole movie. The faces of Arnet and Forte pan across the screen, staring and mugging not only at each other but into the camera, setting up an uncomfortable atmosphere so strong that it disarms. The way Arnet and Forte stare at each other during the montage, the biggest surprise is that a partially nude embrace is as intimate as they get.
The rest of the movie following the opening credits explores many more ways that, while failing to grab a laugh, make it impossible to feel comfortable in your well-padded theater seat. Forte’s script receives stunned silence instead of laughs. The degree to which he is unaware of this must be astounding, because Forte is prone to reusing the same gag multiple times. I must presume that there were no trial screenings where Forte witnessed an audience respond with an equally recurrent gagging.
As much as Forte cannot write laughs, he also fails in creating characters that resemble actual people. The female lead, Kristen Wiig, portrays the eventual vehicle for the Solomon’s fetal desires. She claims to have been pushed into this decision by financial reasons and her motivation is never again discussed. The “growth” her character experiences as she warms to John and Dean and becomes attached to the baby will surprise no one.
Solomon follows the same arc as any Disney-approved story, where the character who is “too cool for school” finds that there are still important lessons to be learned from losers. There is nothing else notable to say about Wiig’s character, which is unfortunate because the last time Wiig was on the screen, she stole the scene as the passive-aggressive E! producer in Knocked Up. Between Wiig and Arnet, writer/actor Forte must have made a horcrux from killing fond memories of what good comedy is like.
Other familiar faces in Solomon include Chi McBride, who makes his second big screen appearance with Arnet after 2006’s Oscar snub Let’s Go To Prison. McBride’s caricature is that of the imposing and chronically-cursing black man. If it were not for his interracial relationship with Wiig’s equally dimensional character, his character could have walked right off the set of Birth of a Nation. As bad is that may seem, the role displayed far more of an actor’s craft than that of the comatose Solomon patriarch, played by Lee Majors, who despite being in about half of the scenes, managed to stay unconscious until moments before the end credits rolled. I’m jealous.
