If I had maybe taken a film studies class at any point in my life, maybe I would be better able to disseminate what exactly went wrong with The House. It's not for lack of talent, that's for sure. Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler and Jason Mantzoukas lead the film, and a deep roster of impressive comedic talent in supporting roles, including Nick Kroll, Allison Tollman, Michaela Watkins, Rob Huebel, Andrea Savage, Cedric Yarbrough, Lennon Parham, Rory Scovel, and brief appearances from Jeremy Renner, Kyle Kinane, Jessica St. Clair, Sam Richardson and Randall Park. These are all extremely gifted comedic actors, and yet the laughs they generate individually and as an ensemble are few.
The film is the directorial debut from Andrew Jay Cohen, cowritten with Brendan O'Brien. The pair had previously written the hilarious Neighbours and Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising, and the modestly successful Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, so there is somewhat of a winning track record... and yet The House is utterly bereft of what a comedy needs, humour.
In the film, the Johansen's (Ferrell and Poehler) daughter is accepted to a prestigious fake college, but they are deep in debt and cannot afford it. Mantzoukas plays Frank their depressed, gambling-addicted, recently separated friend who, after a brief trip to Vegas (literally a 2-3 minute diversion) convinces the couple to start an illegal casino with him. Very quickly the Casino takes off, it expands into all the usual casino things (massage centers, poolside bar, performance room, betting, underground fight club) and as the house, the trio need to maintain order, which means punishing cheaters. This all puts them at odds with the local mob and a corrupt city councilor, none of which has any real weight. All the building tension is put upon the Johansen's unwavering need to fund their daughter's education at any expense, including their own moral code and sense of decency.
If I had to guess, the film got lost in the direction. Cohen, being a novice feature director, likely had a few nerves working with his very stacked cast. His script for the film likely became merely a template in the end, and not the core structure. There seems to be much deference to the improvisational talents of the cast, and in the editing, The House plays like a poorly stitched quilt of little off-the-cuff moments rather than a fully realized story or character study. What was likely a comedic narrative of good intentions going off the rails becomes a perplexingly choppy series of vignettes and montages of *almost* funny moments that don't cohere to the thrust of the movie.
Farrell and Poehler fail at creating relatable or inviting characters. The Johansens never feel real, as they never present anything close to a human reaction to their ridiculous scenarios. At least one of them needed to play the straight man in the situation, but both are constantly flexing their improv muscles scene-by-scene which winds up taking them out of their character. Other characters in the film are given motivations and personalities, yet they have no real character or arc. A smarter film would have built up this large cast of supporting characters and let them do more of the comedic heavy lifting and put Ferrel and Poehler both as straight men (but who would dare tell Ferrell and Poehler to rein it in?). I could see, say, Jason Bateman and Rashida Jones as the Johansens as straight men, generating comedy in reacting to the insanity they're creating around them while also breathing real life and sympathy into the couple. As is, they become more and more unlikeable as the film goes on.
Mantzoukas is a personal favourite comedic performer, having incredible improv skills, as well as a real gift with unhinged, disreputable, and coarse characters. As Frank, Mantzoukas plays the pathetic desperation well, at first, but the more room the cast is given to improvise, the more of Mantzoukas' traditional comedic instincts come out, which seem at odds with Frank as a character. His motivation is to win his wife back. He does, but it's inexplicable how he actually does that. It's lost in the edit. Same with Huebel's Officer Chandler turning on Kroll's corrupt councilor...the reasoning disappears in the edit.
It's an unfortunate mess of a film. So much wasted talent. The fact that the film closes with an incredibly short blooper reel (also not particularly funny) is either a sign that Cohen didn't know what to do with the footage he got, or that everyone was sorely off their game, or they were seriously lacking in direction.
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