The House is a 2017 American comedy film directed by Andrew Jay Cohen, and co-written by Cohen and Brendan O'Brien. The film stars Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, Jason Mantzoukas, Ryan Simpkins, Nick Kroll, Allison Tollman, Rob Huebel, Michaela Watkins, and Jeremy Renner, and follows a couple that opens an underground casino in their friend's house in order to pay for their daughter's college tuition.
Principal photography began on September 14, 2015 in Los Angeles. The film was released on June 30, 2017, by Warner Bros. Pictures, received negative reviews from critics and grossed $34 million worldwide against its $40 million budget.
Plot[]
After losing their daughter's college scholarship, husband and wife Scott (Ferrell) and Kate (Poehler) team up with their neighbor Frank Theodorakis (Mantzoukas) to start an illegal casino in their basement to raise money to pay for their daughter's tuition. Frank's wife, Raina, divorces him due to his gambling problem. The casino operation proves to be running smoothly until they discover that one of the gambler (Zissis) caught cheating in poker game. The Johansens and Frank confront him but Scott accidentally chops off the middle finger. This earns him a nickname "The Butcher" and makes the whole city afraid of his family, which inadvertently increases the profits. Several thousand dollars away from gaining $500,000, they are caught by a city councilor Bob Schaeffer (Kroll) and a police officer (Huebel) who confiscate their money and order them to close down the casino. Nonetheless, they continue their business in the neighbor's house which burns down after being invaded by a mobster (Renner) who works with the man whose finger had been chopped off. Having admitted their plot to their daughter, Scott and Kate team up with her and the police officer who had let them loose to steal the money back from Schaeffer. After being caught, Schaeffer reveals his plot to steal money from the city budget for him and his lover (Tolman), who leaves him and returns back to her husband (Scovel). Schaeffer is arrested while Scott and Kate use the money they took back from him to pay for their daughter's tuition.