There’s a basic tenet of Hollywood screenwriting. If all else fails, you can take pretty much any theme – Christmas, adolescence, cooking, whatever – and crowbar it into a ego-driven competition framework. In this case, the arena is parenting. Will Ferrell is Brad, smooth jazz-loving, cookie-baking, lunchbox-packing stalwart of the PTA. He is also the doting stepdad of a pair of poppets who are just beginning to accept him as part of their life. Then their biological dad re-enters the picture. Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) rocks up on a motorbike, a slipstream of testosterone and reckless excitement drifting behind him. He’s the lawless, leather-clad opposite to Brad’s beige, homespun cosiness. Naturally, the kids adore him.
What follows is a sporadically funny but wholly formulaic tussle for primary-dad status. Grown men humiliate themselves and lose their self respect, but all is redeemed in a big cathartic dance number at the end. It’s by-numbers filmmaking that rarely adds up to anything worth the price of admission.
