Movie Thoughts: Bros

I’m a straight guy who went to see this movie. I was hoping for “Bridesmaids”. Instead I got something around “This Is 40" in terms of quality. It’s not terrible, per se, but it’s trying to be amazing and generational and instead it’s just all right.

The movie has its good points, but ultimately it’s just about hopelessly self-absorbed beautiful rich people who happen to be LGTBQ. This would be fine if the movie knew it and used it, but it doesn’t. Like all the post-mainstream success Judd Apatow movies, it comes off as sort of intended career coronation for its star. “Ok, this person is mainstream now.” It didn’t work for Amy Schumer, it didn’t work for Pete Davidson and it doesn’t work here for Billy Eichner.

As far as the supporting cast, Luke MacFarlane plays a very likable bloke and I wish the movie had been from his perspective. It’s good to see Harvey Fierstein again even if it is for only one scene. Bowen Yang is fucking insufferable. I did not recognize Guillermo Diaz. The other actors I‘d never heard of, but they all do fine and earn their paychecks.

If I was gay, I feel like I’d be insulted by the overall tone of this movie. “My success is your representation, now worship me!” That’s the whole vibe. It’s too bad, because the movie’s at its best when it’s not trying to be that coronation. You can see what might have been. There’s some funny shit in here — a graphic, awkward, minute-long gay hook-up scene is legitimately funny (and sad and relatable to anyone who’s used hook-up apps). The scenes and conversations in the gay nightclubs are funny. The meetings between the main character’s board of directors for his museum have a lot of funny in them — there’s a bisexual character who has some great lines.

Still, overall, it’s not enough. Watch The Birdcage instead.