The Hawk review – Will Ferrell’s dated golf comedy just isn’t that funny

Ferrell’s brash ladies man and loser golfer could have been hilarious. But comedy has sped up over the last two decades, and all the genital gags and dodgy references fall flat

In the 2000s, American comedy had a rude awakening. While the preceding decade had been all attractive sophisticates bantering in big cities, the new millennium arrived in a miasma of crude, cartoonish buffoonery: Austin Powers, American Pie, Dude, Where’s My Car? These were, sadly, the sacred texts of a millennial adolescence.

In comparison, the work of the Frat Pack – a group of comic actors that included Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Seth Rogen and Luke and Owen Wilson, plus writer-director Judd Apatow – seemed almost highbrow. By the middle of the decade, this cohort had funnelled ribald irreverence into much better films, including Zoolander, Dodgeball and Anchorman. Eventually, though, the worm turned; as chin-stroking dramedy and nerdy Marvel wisecracking took hold of the zeitgeist, this PC-needling silliness fell out of fashion.