Movie Review: Brothers

Feb 3 2010 by Ian Bunting, Airdrie & Coatbridge

BROTHERS is a drama focussing on a love triangle affected by the Afghan War.

Tobey Maguire stars as Captain Sam Cahill, a soldier who goes missing in Afghanistan. Meanwhile his brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) gets close to Sam’s wife Grace (Natalie Portman), causing conflict when Sam returns suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

We’ve had a few war films in recent years and Brothers takes the Stop-Loss approach to showing the effects of war, rather than the conflict itself.

The main problem with Brothers is that it suffers from a mixed tone. It’s a solid film but for spells feels like, in turn, a family drama, a war movie, a rom-com and a study of psychological breakdown. It’s all too much.

Irish director Jim Sheridan brought us the terrific My Left Foot but his last movie was 50 Cent’s horrible ‘memoir’ Get Rich or Die Tryin’.

He deserves credit for his bravery in trying to combine various emotional issues but the back-to-back scenes of painting hi-jinks and Afghanistan-set torture sum up the feeling that Sheridan has thrown too much into one film.

However, the acting from his three leads is very strong. Maguire recently walked away from his Spider-Man gig and manages to erase some of the memory of him strutting down the street dancing in Spider-Man 3.

He shines best in the more intense last half hour as all of his emotions pour out. There’s an incredibly affecting scene with him looking down at the baby of a fellow soldier. His ‘dark side’ is conveyed much more effectively here than in the third Spider-Man installment.

Gyllenhaal is the stand-out on show. On-screen, he’s been to war (Jarhead) and dealt with terrorism and torture (Rendition) but stays at home to pick up the pieces this time out.

With a crew-cut, stubble and intense eyes, he is both charming and fiery. The best laughs come in his interaction with Grace’s children and a barman, and the look on his face when Sam returns perfectly captures his combined relief and frustration.

Portman has been a bit quiet lately but as the object of two men’s affections she keeps it nicely low-key. She plays the horrible moment when the military knock on her door very well.

The film touches on the emotional impact of war on troops and the simplistic views on the ‘enemy.’ Sam says Afghanistan “feels like home” and a dinner table conversation sees one character ask, quite seriously, “Who are the bad guys?” to be met with the reply “The ones with the beards.”

As good as many aspects are, especially the performances, Brothers is not a film I will remember for very long. It’s perfectly watchable and the content mix makes it unlike most movies you’ll see, but these siblings deserve less erratic storytelling and direction.

Rating - 6 out of 10.