John Cena is one of those actors that you always want to root for. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing, he always commits fully to it, no matter how ridiculous the part. And he’s genuinely improved over the years. I remember interviewing him for the WWE Studios drama Legendary way back in 2010, and Cena is leaps and bounds better now. Unfortunately, he’s stuck opposite the woefully unfunny Eric Andre in Little Brother, a Netflix comedy that does nothing for Cena and should be quickly forgotten.
Cena is given the straight man role in Little Brother, which makes sense when he’s got the unhinged Andre opposite him. And normally, Cena is so sincere that he can do pretty much anything, even be the comic relief when called upon. As successful real estate agent Rudd Landy, his only job is to react to what Andre is doing. That would be fine if his character were remotely relatable. Rudd has always lived in the shadow of his douchebag older bro, Josh, who is more successful and more charismatic than him. So when Rudd gets his shot to be in a Property Brothers-style reality show, he jumps at it. Andre enters the picture as Marcus, who as an underprivileged kid was mentored by Rudd in the Big Brother program. They haven’t spoken in decades, though, so when Marcus breaks out of the psych ward to reconnect with Rudd, it comes as a shock.
The only other shock you might get from Little Brother is that some studio exec, possibly drunk out of their mind, gave this movie the green light. Personally, Andre’s manic style of humor has never worked for me. Readers of this site know that he has ruined some pretty good movies for me, and dragged bad ones even further down, like the recent sports comedy, Balls Up. Marcus gets banged up a lot, hit by multiple cars and such, always for laughs, so fans of Andre will enjoy watching him flop around. He also drops a lot of sexual talk and delivers non-sequiturs meant to be edgy. But they come across as desperate more than funny.
Other than the dreadful Ricky Stanicky, Cena has been on a roll lately with Heads of State, Jackpot!, Peacemaker, and Superman. It’s unfortunate the hot streak gets frozen over with Little Brother, because he’s so much better than this weak material by director Matt Spicer and screenwriters Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel. It’s also a step down for Spicer, who directed the excellent Hollywood comedy Ingrid Goes West. Michelle Monaghan seems stuck in an endless cycle of thankless wife roles in mediocre comedies. She makes the most out of very little, and has a memorable scene where she…*ahem*…gets acquainted with Cena in a most uncomfortable way. Meloni seems to be having the most fun just being the ultimate asshole big bro, strutting around like the biggest swinging dick in the room. I’m a huge fan of Sherry Cola, who plays Rudd’s personal assistant Mia, but her subplot where she’s crushing hard on Marcus never gathers any steam.
You know things are bad when even Little Brother’s blooper reel sucks. Everything about it is recycled Farrelly Brothers comedy from ages ago. This is, sadly, one of the reasons why comedy has died on the big screen. There’s no justification for a movie this bad, this ill-advised, to be in a theater where people have to pay for it. If I had bought a ticket to this I’d be furious, and seeking out the nearest Baskin-Robbins to drown my fury in ice cream. But on Netflix, Little Brother can be just another movie one tries out, realizes it’s awful, and then quietly gives a “thumbs down” when prompted.
Little Brother premieres on Netflix on June 26th.
