Etan Cohen has written satire with Mike Judge and Ben Stiller, but his own directing gives us less encouragement. Holmes & Watson is broad comedy that cannot make its foolishness funny, or its central friendship matter.
Fi1m perspective
Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly put on strained accents in Holmes & Watson (2018), and Cohen gives them too little else to make the partnership worth watching. Their assignment is straightforward: make Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson ridiculous without losing the pleasure of their friendship. As writer and director, Cohen supplies the foolishness but neglects the warmth. We would not recommend the film, and its failures make us cautious about his work behind the camera.
His screenwriting gives us more reason to be interested. Idiocracy (2006), co-written with Mike Judge, and Tropic Thunder (2008), co-written with Ben Stiller and Justin Theroux, place him in a tradition of broad comedy with recognisable targets. The former helped establish his reputation for satire; the latter takes on Hollywood and war films. He moved into directing with Get Hard (2015), which he co-wrote and which stars Ferrell and Kevin Hart.
In Holmes & Watson, a modern reference dropped into period dress is repeatedly asked to do the work of a joke. Cohen seldom establishes enough order in the detective story for its stupidity to upset anything, and the gross-out material offers little beyond the initial provocation. We were bored by the way failed jokes were allowed to linger, with scarcely any warmth between Ferrell and Reilly to make the wait bearable. Some supporting performances offer relief, but the two leads ought to be the reason to stay. Ninety minutes feels long under these conditions.
The Bad Guys (2022), an animated heist comedy for which he wrote the screenplay, keeps the screenwriting career in view. Cohen's work across animation and adult live-action comedy gives us reason to judge those scripts separately from his handling of actors and comic timing. Nor should recognisable collaborators excuse the sluggishness of Holmes & Watson. For another comedy he directs, we would need a better reason than familiar faces in the cast.
Biography
Etan Cohen is an Israeli-American screenwriter and film director. He graduated from the Maimonides School and Harvard College, where he wrote for the Harvard Lampoon. His early television credits include episodes of Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill.
Cohen wrote the screenplays for Idiocracy (2006), Tropic Thunder (2008), Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) and Men in Black 3 (2012). He made his directorial debut with Get Hard (2015), which he also co-wrote, and wrote and directed Holmes & Watson (2018). He received a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director for the latter film. His later work includes the screenplay for The Bad Guys (2022) and its 2025 sequel.
