It's not that T.J. doesn't love his parents, it's just that he's trying to kill them. Thirty-two, unemployed, and derailed somewhere on the path to adulthood, T.J. has boomeranged back home. There, his ennui takes the form of increasingly real fantasies about offing his parents and becoming man of the house. When his high school sweetheart gets engaged, T.J. is forced to deal with his real life, parents and all.
When their father passes away, four grown, world-weary siblings return to their childhood home and are requested -- with an admonition -- to stay there together for a week, along with their free-speaking mother and a collection of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. As the brothers and sisters re-examine their shared history and the status of each tattered relationship among those who know and love them best, they reconnect in hysterically funny and emotionally significant ways.
For Rod Kimball, performing stunts is a way of life, even though he is rather accident-prone. Poor Rod cannot even get any respect from his stepfather, Frank, who beats him up in weekly sparring matches. When Frank falls ill, Rod devises his most outrageous stunt yet to raise money for Frank's operation -- and then Rod will kick Frank's butt.
Even though he's 35, Alex acts more like he's 13, spending his days as the world's oldest video game tester and his evenings developing the next big Xbox game. But he gets kicked out of his apartment and is forced to move in with his grandmother.
In "Step Brothers," Ferrell plays Brennan Huff, a sporadically employed thirty-nine-year-old who lives with his mother, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen). Reilly plays Dale Doback, a terminally unemployed forty-year-old who lives with his father, Robert (Richard Jenkins). When Robert and Nancy marry and move in together, Brennan and Dale are forced to live with each other as step brothers. As their narcissism and downright aggressive laziness threaten to tear the family apart, these two middle-aged, immature, overgrown boys will orchestrate an insane, elaborate plan to bring their parents back together. To pull it off, they must form an unlikely bond that maybe, just maybe, will finally get them out of the house.
Cast: Adam Scott, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Will Ferrell
Directed by: Adam McKay
Scriptwriter: Will Ferrell, Adam McKay
Producer: Judd Apatow