Director: Jim Sheridan
Genre: Drama, Thriller, War
Rating: B
Brothers is a 2009 American remake of a 2004 Danish film, thus
continuing a well established tradition of Americans taking the movies of other
countries and trying to make them flashier.
I haven’t actually seen Brødre, the original film, but I can only assume that it is less flashy, if
for no other reason than because it a) doesn’t have the all star cast and b)
isn’t an American film.
Sam (Maguire) is an all-American man; with Grace (Portman), his wife, his
two daughters, and his honourable career as Marine captain about to embark on his
fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan. His brother,
Tommy (Gyllenhaal) is a complete screw up who just got out of jail for armed
robbery. In Afghanistan Sam’s helicopter
goes down and he’s taken hostage by… well, I’m not really sure who exactly took
him hostage, beyond them being really angry Afghanis with guns. Sam must struggle to survive and get home to
his family, who in turn have been told that he’s dead. At home his family must come to terms with
his death. His parents (Shepard and
Winningham) have lost their golden boy, his wife her husband, his children
their father, and his brother the only family he really had. With the death, Tommy really begins to turn a
new leaf and forces his way back into the lives of his family, initially by
enlisting help to redo Grace’s kitchen.
In the end, of course, Sam returns to his home and they all must deal
with the consequences, both of the newfound friendship between Tommy and Grace
and those of the hardships that Sam has gone through.
The more interesting aspect of
this plot is the struggle that Tommy, Grace, and co have in dealing with Sam’s ‘death.’ Sam’s capture by hostile people and subsequent
torture is something that I kind of felt has been seen in a lot of movies
already and the family reunion looked like a grittier take of Pearl Harbour – copying plot points from
a Michael Bay film is never a good thing.
The way that Tommy and Grace dealt with Sam’s death (the brief
semi-romantic moment aside) is beautifully done, and I would have really liked
it if the film focused more on that than the other elements of the plot. The one other problem that I had was with the
casting. They were all amazing, and I
have to say that I especially loved Bailee Madison and Taylor Greare as Sam and
Grace’s children. You know something has
been done right when the child actors stand out. I did struggle at first with seeing Maguire
as a Marine, although in the end he really won me over. I also struggled with seeing Gyllenhaal as a
man who committed armed robbery. He did
a great job of conveying a drug addict, but I kind of felt like they gave him
that attribute and an ugly neck tattoo in order to just pass him off as a
hardened criminal. That aspect of his
character really wasn’t necessary; they could have easily just had him be an
addict fresh out of jail and not added the armed robbery – that or actually
developed into that aspect of his character a bit more.
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