The House movie review & film summary (2017)
Ferrell and Poehler can only do so much with barely-there characters in half-baked situations. Because they hardly feel like people—about halfway through, I realized I didn’t even know their characters’ names—the extraordinary scheme they’ve concocted for themselves makes no sense and has no momentum. It also has no laughs, or at least precious few, which is why a movie with this caliber of star power is being sneaked into theaters without being shown to critics ahead of time.
Also in theory, besides being a raunchy, R-rated comedy, “The House” aims to be a movie that reflects our current economic reality, in which it’s not necessarily guaranteed anymore that our kids will go to college, build careers and establish better lives for themselves than we have. But that’s at odds with the way these characters actually live, one of the many glaring inconsistencies that plague “The House.”
Ferrell and Poehler star as Scott and Kate Johansen, nerdy suburbanites who live in a spacious home in a charming, leafy village called Fox Meadow. Their teenage daughter, Alex (Ryan Simpkins), has just been accepted to her dream school of Bucknell University. But for some reason, Scott and Kate never set aside any money for her college education; despite their well-off status, it’s unclear what they do for a living, and in an unfunny running bit, Scott is terrible with numbers. So they rely on the annual scholarship the town awards—only this year, soulless city councilman Bob (Kroll) plans to use that money for a lavish community pool.
On an ill-advised trip to Las Vegas with their gambling-and-porn addicted pal, Frank (Mantzoukas), they hatch a scheme to create an underground casino in Frank’s house. He’s in the middle of an ugly divorce, and his angry, estranged wife (Watkins) has cleared out much of the furniture, so there’s plenty of room for a craps table and a roulette wheel and such. Frank even sets up a bunch of safes for stashing the cash. Since they’re the house—and the house always wins—they should make enough money to pay for Alex’s college education in no time.
