Casa de mi Padre Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

Casa de mi Padre Blu-ray Movie Review

How do you say 'vanity project' in Spanish?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 13, 2012

So-called “high concept” films are becoming considerably more and more high, or maybe that’s just the people pitching them to the studios. Witness, for example, Casa de Mi Padre. Surely the pitch went something like, “Will Ferrell in a telenovela—in Spanish!” It’s the kind of pitch that certainly would have made for a suitable sketch on Ferrell’s old stomping grounds Saturday Night Live, but therein lies the problem: Casa de Mi Padre is a feature film, and keeping this conceit going for close to an hour and half is simply more than the structure can bear. To contrast Casa de Mi Padre with another fanciful take on the telenovela craze, simply take a quick peek at this season’s finale episode of Modern Family. It managed to send up the entire hyperbolic atmosphere of the typical telenovela, even working in copious (and often very funny) Spanish language elements, but it did so without losing any of the heart and charm that has so typified this exceptional series. Casa de Mi Padre, on the other hand, plays increasingly like an “in joke” that all of the film’s stars think is absolutely hysterical, even while the audience reaction is limited to shuffling feet and the sound of far off crickets chirping in the Mexican plains.

Does this mean, then, that Casa de Mi Padre is without humor? No, of course not, but the laugh out loud moments can be counted pretty much on one hand. It’s also indicative of the general level of humor in this film that the funniest moments (at least for this reviewer) were some of the more “subtle” (subtle being a decidedly relative term in this context) jokes like a sequence where Ferrell and costar Genesis Rodriguez sing a song consisting entirely of “la, la, la, la” and the subtitles follow right along with “la, la, la, la.” Later, another funny little bit occurs when Rodríguez’s character of Sonia talks about how the wind is telling her Ferrell’s character of Armando is still alive (after having been shot), at which point the wind whips up and the villain of the piece, Sonia’s drug dealing uncle Onza (Gael García Bernal), who is never without at least one cigarette, is manically attempting to use his lighter in the background.

But for every bit like those two, there are perhaps ten (or even twenty) bits that simply fall flat, despite desperate mugging and hyperbolic attempts to put the material over. The film has a number of really odd, unfunny moments as well, as in the semi-running gag of Armando and his two buddies just giggling ridiculously for what seems like minutes, with nothing else happening. A couple of other “meta” moments, one featuring a jump cut due to a missing “prop” and another where the film literally stops for a moment while a textual “apology” scrolls by, are amusing, but not really all that funny. There is a very subtle continuity error late in the film that is certainly intentional and may actually provoke a little laughter from film geeks (and you know who you are). Keep an eye on Onza and his ornate phone when he’s talking to the Mexican police officer.

The basic soap operatic plot of Casa de Mi Padre deals with Armando and his dysfunctional family. His father Manuel (Pedro Armendáriz, Jr.) favors Armando’s brother Raúl (Diego Luna), especially now that Raúl has brought the luscious Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez) back to the family ranch so that they can be married. Armando soon finds out the Raul is a drug runner and that Sonia is the niece of Onza, Raúl’s nemesis and the biggest drug kingpin in Mexico. Lest it not be obvious from the fact that Ferrell, not Luna, is the star, Armando and Sonia soon start feeling romantic yearnings for each other, after the requisite pretensions otherwise.

As anyone who has watched even a moment of Spanish language tv will agree, telenovelas are a ripe subject for parody, but they’re so over the top to begin with it takes a certain degree of moderation to really exploit the satiric possibilities, and that unfortunately is nowhere in the mix in Casa de Mi Padre. This is a film that reeks of being a “vanity project”, and it’s kind of disappointing that it couldn’t have mined this perfect material for more consistent laughs. My hunch is Casa de Mi Padre will manage to build up its own appreciative cult now that it has made it to home video, but my other hunch is it’s going to be a relatively small cult. Ferrell fans who adore his goofy side will no doubt appreciate the film more than the public at large, but this is a film of largely wasted potential.

Casa de mi Padre Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Casa de Mi Padre is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is an intentionally golden drenched film with an overall soft appearance that one must suppose is meant to mimic the lo-fi ambience of a telenovela. The filtering however has the tendency to rob the image of at least some fine object detail, especially in midrange shots. Close-ups still pop really nicely, especially in segments that aren't bathed in the ubiquitous amber hue. The transfer nicely points up the patently fake sets which add a certain charm to the proceedings. There's a quasi-hallucinogenic sequence toward the end of the film when all bets are off, visually speaking, and that also has increased sharpness and clarity not just due to the psychedelic elements but also because once again the image isn't drowning in yellow.

Casa de mi Padre Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Casa de Mi Padre features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio mix in Spanish (for the most part). This isn't an incredibly aggressive mix for the most part, aside from a couple of great sequences, like a couple of gun battles, where LFE rumbles through the subwoofer and there's a glut of surround activity. This is after all a comedy (the lack of humor notwithstanding) and the soundtrack is therefore more subtly arranged, which is not to say that it's not effective. The many musical interludes sound very good, with nice use of the surround channels, and there are a number of ambient environmental effects that also emanate from discrete channels throughout the film. Dialogue is cleanly presented and fidelity is excellent. Dynamic range is somewhat narrow aside from the aforementioned gun battle sequences and a couple of moments when characters scream at each other.

Casa de mi Padre Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Casa de Mi Padre (HD; 15:43). If you've ever wanted a featurette showing you how a shot of Will Ferrell picking up a stray calf was filmed, this is the supplement for you.


• Deleted Scenes (HD; 19:43) include timecode captions running beneath the scenes.


• Fight For Love Music Video (HD; 3:20) is an original song performed by Will Ferrell and Genesis Rodriguez. Kind of strangely, this also has a timecode caption running beneath the image.


• Comerciales (HD; 3:00). These aren't promos for the film, but faux commercials for cigarettes and beer (one with, again, a timecode caption running beneath the image).


• Pedro Armendáriz, Jr. Final Interview (HD; 3:37). Armendáriz, who portrays Ferrell's father in the film, died on December 26, 2011.


• Audio Commentary by Director Matt Piedmont, Writer Andrew Steele and Star of the Film Will Ferrell. Parts of this commentary are actually funnier than the film, though this is also frequently fairly self-congratulatory. It's a chatty sort of commentary that is long on reactions to the film but short on incisive information, though they do occasionally get into subjects like some of the rigors of the location shooting.

Casa de mi Padre Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm sure there will be a coterie of Ferrell fans who will take me to task for not "getting" Casa de Mi Padre, but I based my review on one simple question: how often did I laugh? The undeniable answer was, "Not very much". This is a film hobbled by its own concept, one that is certainly ripe for satirizing, but which is here played too smugly to ever generate much consistent humor. There was a fantastic sendup of telenovelas this year, one that managed to be laugh out loud funny while skewering the idiom with a lot of heart. Unfortunately for Casa de Mi Padre, that sendup was the final episode of this season's Modern Family.