'Everything Must Go' Review

I'm the guy who has seen everything Will Ferrell has ever done; and I mean everything. I watched him on Saturday Night Live, cracking up his co-stars; I have seen him on the big screen, cracking up everyone, but not once did I think that Will Ferrell was capable of being in a film like this. He can't be serious, can he?

C'mon, right? This is a guy who ran around a race track in his underpants to get cheap laughs, who screamed at his mother when she wouldn't bring him meatloaf in a timely manner; this is not the type of person capable of carrying a dramatic role. He is yet another comedian unafraid of his limitations, or maybe ignorant of them, who considers himself an actor and not a comedian.

After seeing this film, in the historic E Street Theater in the District of Columbia, I can be sure of only one thing: Will Ferrell is an actor.

Everything Must Go has a simple premise. Man seeks redemption. Nick (Ferrell) is fired from his corporate job for, lets say, convoluted reasons. When he gets home he finds that his wife has left him and has taken the time to move all of his things out onto the front lawn. Due to lack of friends and money Nick is pretty much forced into living in his yard, and actually begins to enjoy a side of life that he had never seen before. Namely, the people around him, his neighbors.

Nick's most important relationship is with a 14 year old boy named Kenny (played by Chris Wallace- Notorious B.I.G.'s son). It is Kenny's lack of knowledge about the world and constant questions that allows Nick to start questioning things himself just to keep up with Kenny's search for knowledge. His neighbor from across the street, Samantha (Rebecca Hall), also helps him see the proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel' for his particular situation. They are so similar, their lives are, that Nick sees her and her husband as a past version of him and his wife. He knows how they are going to end but it is her courage to actually confront her situation that inspires Nick to do the same.

If a picture says a thousand words
what does this say?

If that last paragraph was choppy and hard to follow, well, there is a reason for that. The film is the same way. Everything Must Go is, to me, is more of a collection of scenes than a full out narrative tale. And it doesn't offer the same type of emotional effect that it should, because, well, the audience misses too much. It feels as if expositional scenes have been cut for the sake of brevity, something that doesn't allow the audience to fully understand character motivations. Without these motivations the story has no significance. It doesn't matter that Nick sold all of his belongings in a yard sale (a symbol that shows he is trying to start over and redeem himself) we need to know why this is happening. If it's missing I don't care.

I wanted to like this movie so much more than I did. I tried to make excuses as to why someone should go to see this but I just couldn't find any. It is just such a plain, vanilla, piece of work that I found positives hard to find. One was definitely watching Will Ferrell. He isn't a great actor but I can only think of a small group of actors who I would want to star in a film that I wrote. Ferrell is definitely in there. It is so obvious that he could have done much more with the subject material but was restrained by the fear that this would become another Ferrell ham-fest. It's his comedic talents that make this infinitely more watchable than it should have been but even his best Ron Burgandy impression wouldn't have saved this one.

5/10 -- Seen Better, Seen Worse