Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsIf You Love Politically Heavy-Handedness in Your Entertainment...
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2020
Had to turn this off about midway through out of sheer principle when the young college student in her early twenties - who is attending one of the most prestigious universities in the country, mind you (Harvard) - lurches sanctimony-first into a copy-and-paste-style diatribe replete with all of the invectives du jour. From "white privilege" to "male privilege" to "colonialism"... your cup of oblivious irony and puerile petulance will runneth over in this scene. Furthermore, and pitifully enough, at least some sentiment of this individual's rebuke of Ben Stiller's character is justified. Stiller's character's foibles range from neurotic insecurity to the crassest sort of pettiness and self-loathing, all of this, of course, couched as introspection. Here we find the titular "Brad" character (played by Stiller) ever-envious of his quasi-estranged college cohorts, coveting their success and lamenting his own modest life all the while scrutinizing even his own wife and the ways in which her admitted virtues may have contributed to his less-than-grandiose lot in life. At one stage, Brad even finds himself disconcerted and riddled with anxiety at the thought that his own son may one day attain a level of success that will eclipse his own achievements leaving him resentful and bitter. Brad is only consoled and reassured by the subsequent fantasy that his son - as a young man with musical aspirations - will be relegated to a "starving artist" station in life. All though I normally enjoy Stiller and his work, I must conclude: not Stiller's most likable character nor his most compelling film.