year 5 day 113

movie: Daddy's Home
starring: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg
genre: Comedy
year: 2015
format: Shaw Video On Demand

plot: When a radio executive learns his new wife's ex husband is coming to visit, all the insecurities he's already feeling are heightened when he finds out just how competitive his step-kid's biological father really is.

At some point, I think anyone who's been involved with someone who still has ties to their ex has felt both insecure and territorial. It's human nature. That idea is played out fairly well here.
We see Wahlberg's character arrive and push past Ferrell's character, as if brushing off a fly. But as the story progresses, we find out that looks can be deceiving. Both men start to push back, trying to out do the other in everything from sports to picking up the kids at school.

Ferrell plays the same kind of character we've come to expect from him. The overgrown teddy bear clumsy type who can't tie his shoe without tripping over it first. Which, works great 99% of the time. This one has him crying in typical fashion whenever the "kids" do something nice. Just once I'd like to see Ferrell play the opposite type.   Wahlberg spends a good chunk of the film in either the tightest shirts they could find or none at all. At which, Ferrell's character has a running joke of asking him to put his shirt on.

The situations the family find themselves in, are more than formulaic as well; from the son being bullied and needing advice, to the daughter wanting one of her dad's to take her to the big father-daughter dance. The dance scene is one of the biggest laughs in the film. As both the kids find themselves facing their earlier problems, the bullies and the dance itself. When a fight begins to break out, the two dads turn it into a dance-off, which they feel mixes both their philosophies of standing up for yourself when needed and not starting the fight.

By the end of the film, all is resolved and the Wahlberg character sort of has his own role reversal when he becomes someone else's step-dad, and an even bigger badder dude shows up with an even cooler bike and tighter shirt played by John Cena. It's no secret that I can not stand Cena, but he gives the biggest payoff laugh wise in the entire film.

what did I learn? There will always be someone cooler than you no matter what you do or who you are.