It’s good to take your career seriously, especially if you work in the family business. This is true no matter how innocuous or trivial that business may seem to be to outsiders. Just ask the Confetti Brothers. Patrick O’Brien (Mark Teich) and his brother Michael (Lance Barber) now own the seventy-five year-old confetti business started by their great-grandfather Callahan O’Brien in 1924. The brothers, like their forefathers, still believe in old-fashioned ideals like quality and service. This explains why they manufacture their confetti the old-fashioned way; each piece of paper meticulously hand-crafted and individually cut…and so on.
This is the general tone of director Kirker Butler’s genial mockumentary “The Confetti Brothers.” It’s a goofy enough concept and, at twenty-eight minutes, Butler thankfully doesn’t let the joke become too stale. Even so, as this really is a — can’t resist — paper thin one-joke film, it’s primarily the gung-ho straight faced performances of Teich and Barber that keep this mildly amusing farce entertaining.
The plot devices here; a subplot involving their latest line of “interactive confetti,” say, or the new product’s tragic debut at a clown convention are really more clever than comical. And while a guest spot by the crying king of confetti himself Rip Torn lends a nice touch, the film never really rises above the mildly amusing, clever concept stage.
Which isn’t a bad thing. It’s just that “The Confetti Brothers” isn’t quite the cause for a ticker tape parade for which the filmmakers might have hoped.
