Rudd balances comedy with stupidity as 'dim-witted' sibling

Don't quote me here, but I don't believe there is a Paul Rudd flick out there that I didn't like – save for maybe one, but it wasn't his fault. So when I saw the trailer for "Our Idiot Brother," I couldn't help but get a little tickle in my throat. Not like a "getting sick" tickle or a nervous tickle, but more like a tickle that seemed to tell my brain that this movie would be SO funny, and "Future Me" would laugh SO hard that my laughter would reverberate backwards through time, shattering the "time-laugh continuum" and giving me a tickle in my throat. God help me if Jason Segel was co-starring – I might have passed out.

Paul Rudd stars as Ned, the perpetuator of the dim-witted, hippy drug dealer stereotype who gets arrested for selling pot to a uniformed police officer, which gives the audience a quick indicator of just how stupid Ned really is. After about a year in jail – which I think would have been funny to actually see – Ned is released and goes to live with, and subsequently "ruin" the lives of each of his three sisters, played by Emily Mortimer, Elizabeth Banks and my personal favorite Zooey Deschanel.

Throughout the film, it becomes clearer and clearer that Ned is not just some idiotic harbinger of doom, running around aimlessly pulling the pins out of grenades or accidentally discharging a firearm into a crowd of people. Rather, he is just a lovable, oafish "man-child" who is too trusting of those around him and who seems to get along very well with everyone one he meets in his travels.

It's just his family that seems unable to cope with him. Ned moves from sister to sister as he tries to earn enough money to get his own place to live, and each time he is forced to leave them after a short while usually because he is put in a situation where he blindly trusts his family not to lie and take advantage of him, but, of course, they do.

Unlike many comedies, I think the humor of "Our Idiot Brother" comes less from the dialogue and more from Rudd's delivery of that dialogue – especially in situations where he is clearly confused about what is going on. For instance, the scene where Ned realizes that he may be in some trouble after foolishly revealing to his parole officer that he has recently gotten high.

As excited as I was to see this film, I was naturally concerned that Rudd may overplay the stupidity, making himself a foil in a movie where he is the title character. However, I was relieved – as I'm sure Mr. Robert Downey, Jr. might have been – that Ned never reached the depths of going "full-on retard."

I'm quite certain that it will not be a huge blockbuster but "Our Idiot Brother" is definitely the route to take if you're looking for a "feel-good comedy" to see before you go back to the grind of school. And, if that doesn't sway you, there's always the added bonus of seeing Zooey Deschanel play a promiscuous lesbian who cusses like a sailor and does some nude modeling. The choice is yours.