The House Review: 4 Ups & 5 Downs

1. The Plot Makes No Sense

While it's best-advised to just let the movie's rather loose narrative wash over you and stick around for the jokes, it's also hard to ignore just how absurd the movie's plot is, especially as it's a relatively "grounded" movie overall and not as cartoonish as you might expect.

The story hits a brick wall when the Johansens set up their illegal casino operation and start raking in the money. After all, considering its illegal nature and all, wouldn't in-debt players just refuse to pay their large debts and rat them out to the cops instead?

The movie tries to lampshade this by suggesting, through rather convoluted circumstances, that people are afraid of Ferrell's character, but it feels like a lazy excuse to gloss over a major hole in the film's premise.

Yes, this is definitely thinking about it way too much all things considered, but it's also hard to buy into the core premise when the operation could and should be rumbled so easily.

The House may not be a particularly good film, but it does have its moments. Here's what worked...