Casa de mi Padre (2012)

by Ryan

I'll be the first to admit that initially I was pretty hesitant to pay for this movie. The trailers didn't do a very good job of showing what the movie was about or even what genre it was. Honestly, I had a little trouble figuring out whether this was supposed to be a serious movie or not. Granted, Will Ferrell starring in an all-Spanish movie is a pretty hilarious concept. But I digress. "Casa de mi Padre" is one of the weirdest movie experiences I have ever had in my entire life. The movie opens with an English voiceover, stating something along the lines of "If it sounds like a Spanish movie, maybe it is a Spanish movie." Then, as soon as Will Ferrell opened his mouth and fluent Spanish came out, I died. It's fucking great. The best part is that he actually does a pretty terrific job of acting in a language that he does not understand at all. In fact, Ferrell has stated publicly that he had to remember all of his lines phonetically before shooting every scene. He is truly an amazing man. The film itself is about a dim-witted and cowardly rancher, Armando Alvarez, who must find it within himself to become a man in order to save his family's name and the woman that he loves (who also happens to be his brother's fiance) from a mean-spirited drug overlord. It's a very generic, soap opera-y love triangle story made hilarious by the simple fact that Will Ferrell is speaking Spanish. In addition to that, there are a ton of visual gags and awkwardly long jokes that will have you keeled over with laughter. For example, there's an ongoing visual gag which exaggerates the low-budget quality of the film, i.e. cheaply made animal puppets and lots of jump cuts. One cheaply made animal puppet in particular, a white mountain lion, stole the show for me. This white mountain lion actually becomes a prominent character in the movie, calling himself the spirit of the mountain and sounding somewhat like a large black man. And if that doesn't do it for you, there are also a handful of musical numbers! One song is called "Yo No Se (I Don't Know)" and it's about Will Ferrell being a rancher and not knowing anything. Another song is called "La" and it's literally just Will Ferrell and the girl singing "La La La La La" for like three minutes. Unfortunately, there are parts of "Casa de mi Padre" that tend to drag on for longer than they should making the latter half of the movie feel somewhat tedious. But those scenes are more than made up for by the awesome last stand between Armando, his brother, and the drug overlord. Also, every scene that Nick Offerman is in is great too. Overall, this movie kept me entertained and happy for most of its hour and a half runtime. If you like to laugh at weird, vaguely Spanish things, then go see this movie!

Rating: 4 out of 5 poorly rolled cigarettes