Daddy's Home

A family comedy from 2015 in effect asks the rhetorical question: How do blended families cope when the biological dad shows up, the person the mom always made out to be the bad guy in their relationship? Daddy’s Home tackles this subject using plenty of humor and sight gags to make light of the struggles between stepchildren and their new fathers.

Brad Whitaker (Will Farrell) is a stepfather to two children, Megan (Scarlett Estevez) and Dylan (Owen Vaccaro), having married their mother Sara (Linda Cardellini). Unexpectedly, the children’s real father, Dusty Mayron (Mark Wahlberg) shows up, striding back into their lives unwanted except for the kids who are overjoyed to see him again. Dusty is a bad boy riding an Indian motorcycle and working out his muscled physique in the family’s garage. He inserts himself into their home, crashing at their house to compete for his youngsters’ devotion and in an attempt to get his former wife to come back to him. I guess there’s nothing like someone else falling in love with your ex-wife and marrying her to get the jerk to realize just what he’s given up.

The comedy is pretty great. Brad works at a smooth jazz station. His boss Leo Holt (Thomas Haden Church) is an annoying man who tells Brad stories to try to make him feel better or teach him something, but they just end up being truly bizarre stories, some of which are so absurd, I just laughed out loud, amused by his delivery of these over the top scenarios.

Additionally, there are some really crazy situations this strange family deals with. Most notably, the hidden desire of Sara for another child, and the inability of Brad to conceive due to an unfortunate incident involving radiation. Dusty interferes and sets up an appointment with a fertility specialist, Dr. Francisco (Bobby Cannavale), that goes way overboard in my opinion. I don’t see how children should see this particular set of events unfold. It’s the one part of the movie I thought was rather tasteless.

Daddy’s Home is rated PG-13 for thematic elements, crude and suggestive content, and for language. A sequel, Daddy’s Home Two, is now in theaters adding Mel Gibson as Dusty’s father, and John Lithgow as Brad’s father in a story taking place at Christmas. Looks like it will be as funny as this first one.

If you’re a fan of Mark Wahlberg, you will like this film. He plays the charming ex-husband who seeks to give his replacement a run for the money with such bold maneuvers, you can’t help but like him. My husband finds Will Farrell really nauseating, so he didn’t watch the movie with me. Will Farrell is adept at playing kind of effeminate men, silly, stupid men, which is actually a compliment to his acting abilities. If you’re the dad in a blended family, it may be all too painfully real. For an evening of light entertainment, you may find Daddy’s Home to be a pleasant diversion.