After a rocky stretch trying to be the granite-jawed action star John Cena finally hit his groove doing comedy, gleefully playing out-there oddballs for the likes of Judd Apatow, James Gunn, Peter Farrelly, Seth Rogen, Tina Fey, and Paul Feig. This time around, in Little Brother, he flips the script and plays the uptight one a high-strung realtor named Rudd who's saddled with his own personal disaster zone, a walking catastrophe named Marcus (Eric André). And honestly? It works better than it has any right to.
Little Brother isn't reinventing anything, and the gag reel rolling under the end credits makes it pretty obvious the cast had more fun shooting this than we have watching it but there are real laughs in here. Marcus gets put through such an absurd gauntlet of misfortune that you can't help but laugh out loud at how far they push it. Just don't expect this to become your go-to rewatch. Once through, and you're set.
This movie slots into a well-worn genre: the "one guy drives another guy insane" comedy, a lineage running from Planes, Trains & Automobiles through What About Bob?, The Cable Guy, and arguably most of SpongeBob SquarePants. Jarrad Paul co-wrote this one, and he also co-created the criminally overlooked Fox sitcom The Grinder, and you can feel that DNA here a buttoned-up, anxious rule-follower getting steamrolled by a chaotic free spirit. (Cena does solid work, but let's be honest, he's not quite operating on Fred Savage's level when it comes to wringing comedy gold out of being the straight man.)
There are stretches where Little Brother gets genuinely, wickedly funny almost Farrelly Brothers territory at its peak. But it also drifts into generic streaming-comedy filler more than once, and those lulls make the unrealized potential sting a little. Still, if watching Eric André get pummeled by an endless string of perfectly timed physical disasters sounds like your idea of a good time, this movie was made for you.
Little Brother can be deviously funny at times. But there are also long stretches where it becomes a Plain Jane streaming comedy.
The setup: Rudd is angling to become the breakout star of a glossy NYC real estate reality show when Marcus barges back into his life. Years back, Rudd briefly served as Marcus's mentor through a youth outreach program something he mostly signed up for to work through issues with his own older brother, Josh. These days, Marcus is a walking monument to chaos and unresolved trauma, fully convinced he and Rudd have stayed close all these years. In reality, it's been Rudd's assistant Mia (Sherry Cola, of Shrinking) quietly fielding all his emails.
So now an already-stressed Rudd has to contend with a human wrecking ball who manages to torch every plan he's made while somehow effortlessly charming everyone else in his orbit his wife (Michelle Monaghan) included, plus his now-grown brother Josh (Christopher Meloni).
The cast clicks, especially Cena and André together, but the plot hits every beat you'd expect from a mile away. Sympathy for Rudd, then sympathy for Marcus, then a warm group hug by the end. Even so, there's enough bodily-fluid chaos, gratuitous nudity, and prop-penis gags to make this a perfectly fine couch-and-remote kind of night.
The Verdict
Little Brother has every hallmark of forgettable streaming filler, but it claws its way above that thanks to a steady stream of beautifully executed physical disasters raining down on Eric André it's basically what would happen if everything that somehow avoids Mr. Magoo instead found Marcus. There's something satisfying about watching Cena's character get knocked off balance for once. The movie sticks closely to the comedy formula, but those bursts of mayhem give it just enough juice to break through. Little Brother might test your patience the same way Marcus tests Rudd's but that's sort of the point: it wants to bury you in just how much of a disaster this guy truly is.