Casa De Mi Padre

To say the least Casa De Mi Padre is an oddity. Not because it’s a wacky Tarantino-lite parody of Spaghetti Westerns and early 70s exploitation films but because it is made in Spanish with English subtitles. Why would you commit what seems to be commercial suicide for no apparent benefit? I don’t know how it fared in the US but here the film pretty much went straight to DVD.

Ferrell plays Armando Alvarez, a rather dim-witted Mexican rancher whose brother Raul (Diego Luna) gets involved in a drug war with the local drug baron (Gael Garcia Bernal). Don’t worry too much about the plot, the film is just out to have fun with the conventions of the B-grade fare that it targets – including using cheap sound stages instead of real locations, very bad rear screen projection, and even at one point a written apology on screen explaining why one sequence is missing.

Director Matt Piedmont and screenwriter Andrew Steele are both long-time Saturday Night Live writers and with Ferrell, who was a producer, also an ex-alumnus the film has all the hallmarks of a boys’ pet project. There are intermittent chuckles to be had but other than the seemingly-perverse linguistic curve ball, there's really nothing new here.  Had this been much better or much worse it might have won an audience but as it is I suspect that the lads will have done their dough.

DVD Extras:  Making of;  Deleted scenes; "Fight For Love" music video; Fake TV ads, Pedro Armendaris interview; Theatrical trailer

Available from: Madman

 

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