‘Solomon’ defines
a dreadful movie

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

A movie cannot be considered a comedy if it has no laughs. That’s the problem facing The Brothers Solomon. During parts of the movie that may have been intended for laughs, I heard groans.
I thought The Brothers Solomon would be the kind of movie that’s so stupid it’s funny. Instead, it’s just plain stupid, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone wasting their time watching what essentially is a 90-minute Saturday Night Live sketch.
Screenwriter and star Will Forte has been on SNL since 2002. Not having seen anything Forte has done on the show, I can’t compare any performances. However, I can say that I’m less inclined to want to see him on SNL based on the writing and acting in The Brothers Solomon.
Possibly thinking two Wills are better than one, Will Arnett (Blades of Glory and Hot Rod) acts opposite Forte in The Brothers Solomon. Director Bob Odenkirk (Let’s Go to Prison) shows little direction from the beginning as the movie goes off into strange close-ups of the two leading men making faces for the camera. The overall direction of the movie lacks visual style; it plays like a TV show rather than a movie.
I can’t even recommend any scenario worth watching. It’s playing only on about 700 screens nationwide as opposed to the minimum 3,000 screens that new movies typically open on.
The script for The Brothers Solomon might have sounded good if the Judd Apatow hits Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin had never been made. Trying to capitalize on that Apatow appeal, the basic premise of The Brothers Solomon is that brothers Dean (Forte) and John Solomon (Arnett) are pretty bad in the dating department. Dean kisses a date’s father on the lips. John asks a woman to marry him on the first date.
They blame their lack of lady skills on their upbringing in the Arctic Circle. Raised only by their father after the death of their mother, the brothers were home-schooled. They took old Eskimo women with missing teeth to their prom.
Dad (Lee Majors) is in a coma and the doctor thinks fulfilling his wish for a grandchild might bring him back and give him hope to live. John and Dean set off to find a woman to impregnate. Since old-fashioned dating hasn’t worked in the past, they try the Web site Craigslist. They meet Janine (Kristen Wiig, another SNL cast member), who agrees to carry a child for the brothers.
Throughout the movie, various scenarios make it clear that the brothers have no clue about how to be fathers. To get comfortable around kids, they try to lure a little girl at the playground to their car by asking if she wants ice cream. Luckily, the girl’s mother is around to drag her away.
Forte and Arnett seem like they’re trying way too hard to be funny. Nothing in the movie feels natural. At times the movie gets cheesy and so syrupy sweet that you feel like you could get a cavity from watching.
Forte and Arnett don’t really have chemistry as brothers. Kristen Wiig, who had a small but funny role in Knocked Up, is OK here, but she’s hardly memorable.
I also wonder if the movie’s soundtrack consists of one song — which, by the way, was on the soundtrack of a popular 1980s film. St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) played repeatedly throughout the film. I didn’t get how the song applied to The Brothers Solomon, but after hearing it four times, I wanted to be a woman in motion, heading for the exit. ••
Movie Grade: F