The House (2017) * *

Directed by:  Andrew Jay Cohen

Starring:  Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, Jason Mantzoukas, Ryan Simpkins, Nick Kroll, Rob Huebel, Jeremy Renner

Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, and the rest of the game cast of The House try mightily to infuse some spirit into the film, but eventually even they are crushed by the film's desire to strain for any kind of laugh.    The actors put forth a superhuman effort to draw a few laughs out of the material and they occasionally succeed.    Only occasionally, but not nearly enough to save the ultimately irrelevant comedy I forgot about ten minutes after leaving the theater.

Ferrell and Poehler play Scott and Kate Johansen, who are suffering from severe separation anxiety as their daughter Alex (Simpkins) plans to go to Bucknell University.     Scott and Kate plan on spending as much time with Alex over the summer before she departs, which means watching The Walking Dead while scrunched together on the bed.    It is borderline creepy and it shows Alex is far more mature than her parents.  Then a snag, a scholarship provided by the town is rescinded due to budget cuts and Scott and Kate realize they don't have the money to pay for even a semester of school, let alone four years.   

Fortunately their down-on-his-luck friend Frank (Mantzoukas) has a brainstorm:   Turn his nearly empty house (courtesy of his wife leaving him) into a casino with table games, fights, and a neighborhood clientele who seemingly has endless disposable income.     The house always wins, in their estimation, so they sit back and watch the money flow into the coffers.    Of course, we never learn where the three seemingly broke adults find the money to purchase the games and remodel the house in the first place. 

All of this money grabbing isn't necessarily as easy as it sounds.    Word gets around about the casino and causes problems, including a card counter whose finger is accidentally chopped off by Ferrell in a Casino-like attempt to intimidate him.    It turns out the counter is connected to a powerful local mobster.    Blood squirts all over Scott and everyone screams a lot.    None of it is actually funny.    Inexplicably, Scott, Kate, and Frank begin to act like bad-ass casino bosses.    Scott wears female sunglasses (he calls them Italian and this is pretty funny), Kate begins smoking weed daily, and Frank struggles to win his wife back.     (Memo to filmmakers:   Characters smoking weed is not funny.    You have to add something to it to give it an edge).     By this time, The House has swerved off the rails after maintaining some decent comic energy and a few laughs for the first 45 minutes.

The House runs about 80 minutes and barely has enough story to cover that minimal length.    The film has a gag reel before the closing credits, but I admit I bailed on it quickly.     Gag reels are presented to show us what a wonderful, fun time everyone had making the film.     I have no doubt they did.     I don't doubt the actors' energy level, just the material they found themselves in.