Daddy's Home

Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell go head to head in a competitive-dad comedy. Ferrell is Brad, doting stepfather to the children of his new wife Sarah (Linda Cardellini). He’s just started to win the kids over when their previously elusive biological father Dusty (Wahlberg) roars in on a motorbike, supposedly achingly cool and impossible to compete with. Who will win over the kids and their mum?

The fact that Dusty is really a bit of a saddo is something a smarter film could have developed. But director Sean Anders’s film tells a basic story in which rutting males repeatedly lock horns to varying degrees of comic effect. Ferrell’s sensitive, PC stepdad is amusing at first but becomes less engaging as he buckles under pressure, while Wahlberg looks like he’s sauntered in from a different film altogether. Linda Cardellini has little to do other than look exasperated ‘Daddy’s Home’ raises the occasional smile, but it’s not exactly Wahlberg or Ferrell’s finest hour.