Skip to main content

Review: Brothers


Sam (Tobey Maguire) and Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) are about the closest replica of East of Eden that one could find. Sam is a Captain in the U.S. Army, married and the father of two beautiful children. Tommy scrapes by getting in and out of prison while earning the wraith of his father Hank (Sam Shepard).

The call of duty waits for no man, however and he is sent to Afghanistan. There, the unimaginable happens, Sam is taken by insurgent forces.

Wayward brother Tommy has just been released from prison. When news comes of Sam apparent death comes, he is far from turning his shit around like most film would have. Tommy plunges further into drinking and confrontations with Hank. Grace (Natalie Portman) has to pick him up from a night of binge drinking she finally gets through to him and the transition the following morning is much richer because it was not rushed.

As Tommy and Grace learn to make the transition from nuclear family to their happy union, Sam comes home to their simultaneous delight. To their dismay, Sam is not the same man who left them almost a year ago.

Convinced that Tommy has slept with his wife Sam is unable to emotionally connect with his family again and everyone takes notice: especially the children. Maggie's birthday party dinner is so filled with tension that when Isabelle explodes and screams, "why didn't you just stay dead?" You feel utterly deflated and torn as much as Sam.

It's really nice to see Gyllenhaal in a film that allows him to flex his acting chops. Same goes for Maguire. Both are more known for their roles as angsty teen and web-slinger, respectively, but in Brothers they both tune in and allow the audience to witness the destruction of a family following a soldier's return from war.

Natalie Portman is the emotional heart of the film as the mother who has has to keep everything together and if Bullock can garner Oscar buzz for The Blind Side someone needs to start banging the drum for Portman.

Maguire gives a real solid performance as a soldier who cannot live with what he has done to get back home to his wife and children. The traumatic experiences he suffers in Afghanistan has the most emotional impact in a film I've seen all year. Director Jim Sheridan doesn't pull the punches of Sam's POW experience and the film would not be as effective if he didn't. The way soldiers are treated in this country is shameful we train them to kill and when their tour is over we send them home without as much a second thought about their well-being.

Brothers, while a solid effort supported by its acting, never really strives to say anything outside Sam's POW experience. For that reason it only garners three stars.

***/****

Popular posts from this blog

The Best of the Decade

Over the last ten years, the cinema has given us a great deal to be thankful for: a rebirth of the Batman franchise, a series of examinations of what it means to live in this particular decade, and a mass of character studies whether they be animated or popcorn thrillers. As much as I have enjoyed the offerings, a list must be culled together for the end of the year. Except this year is different, this year ten films must be selected from hundreds. Below are some of the best of the aughts. Enjoy! 10) There Will Be Blood Paul Thomas Anderson's magnum opus, a scathing look at extremism in America and the evils of greed and profiteering from religion. It also features the best performance of the decade with Daniel Day-Lewis as oil-man Daniel Plainview. 9)  Up A beautiful tale that entrances all ages,  Up managed to captivate children and tell a tale that adults cherish as well. 8) The Dark Knight Maybe just a comic book film, but it is the best comic book film

Paprika vs. Inception

Months before Inception hit the theaters forums were alive with rumors that Christopher Nolan either accidentally or intentionally stole some details from another film, the Japanese anime Paprika. The biggest point of comparison for some bloggers and forum runners was the fact that both of the films featured a device that allowed a person, or people, to travel into another’s dreams and delve into their subconscious. Minor points of comparison include scenes in Paprika where the character Paprika breaks through a mirrored wall by holding her hand to it, as well as a scene where a police detective falls his way down a hallway. Claims have been made that Inception abounds with imagery similar to or exactly like the anime movie, but with the recent release of the film on DVD and Blu-Ray, and with Paprika available for several years now, an examination of the two plots can be made more fully. Let us begin with the primary claim— Inception stole the idea of a dream

Armond White's Top Ten Films on Flickchart

Armond White is film criticism’s most famous contrarian. At one moment he writes  a review declaring  Toy Story 3  to be the most obscene excuse for toy commercials  he has ever watched, and then two weeks later types out  a glowing review of  Resident Evil: Afterlife . He is of split-mind for sure. But what does his Flickchart look like? Read the rest at Flickchart !