Review: ‘Dr. Brinks & Dr. Brinks’ fails to engage on a comedic level or anything else

By the time the uninvolving, ill-conceived comedy “Dr. Brinks & Dr. Brinks” finds its footing, about an hour in, we’ve been worn down by what plays more like a tedious, ad-hoc collection of indie-ironic scenes and moments than as any kind of fully baked narrative.

Hot mess Michelle Brinks (Kristin Slaysman, also a producer) reunites after five years with her struggling L.A. musician brother Marcus (Scott Rodgers), following the plane crash deaths of their parents, a pair of Doctors Without Borders physicians.

Although mom and dad are extolled by others as saints, they were clearly deficient, absentee parents, leaving Michelle and Marcus feeling little loss. Their would-be grief, however, rears its head in oblique ways — Michelle starts a fling with Marcus’ father-in-law (Robert Longstreet, quite good), Marcus and wife Alex (Ashley Spillers) drift apart — all as the beset siblings attempt to sort out their enigmatic mom and dad’s tangled finances.

The script by director-editor Josh Crockett and Jonathan Pappas offers few real glimpses into Michelle and Marcus’ shared upbringing and younger adulthoods that might help us better understand — or care about — their spiraling dysfunction. As well, the title characters, mostly presented as paper-thin punching bags, remain elusive story catalysts.

There are ultimately kernels of truth buried amid the film’s random yakking, mini-crises and bits of forced bad behavior, but they prove too little, too late.

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‘Dr. Brinks & Dr. Brinks’

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena