Nobody could mistake Adam McKay for an outstanding film director, but he is a master of the comedy of attrition. Each of the three proudly ragged movies that he has made with Will Ferrell — Anchorman, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and now Step Brothers — work you over through sheer volume (in both senses of the word) until you feel exhausted or exhilarated or both.

Step Brothers isn’t a marvel of non-sequitur hilarity to rank with Anchorman (but then, what is?). Its high concept — two developmentally arrested morons (Ferrell and John C. Reilly) turned step brothers engage in a territorial pissing match before becoming BFFs — is several rungs lower than Talladega Nights’ affectionately condescending flyover-country satire. But it’s funnier than its more smoothly conceived predecessor. It has less pretense towards being a “real” movie (its protagonists’ midlife growing pains are never played for real pathos) and for all the dead spots and failed gags, the highs are authentically stratospheric: the film culminates in an honest-to-goodness aria, wherein several peripheral characters’ fantasy lives are laid bare (centaurs are involved). Well-made movies come and go, but this kind of dementia is forever. 

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