Brothers is a remake of a 2004 Danish film (Brodre) by Susanne Bier and I cannot help but think the original is better than the 2009 version by Jim Sheridan (The Boxer, Ger Rich or Die Tryin’) because I just feel as though this film falls short of expectations. With a cast boasting Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey MaGuire, and Natalie Portman, one would expect a real tour de force of acting but that is the first problem with the film, the characters are unbelievable. The rest just kind of clambers on from there.
The story goes as follows: Sam (Tobey) and Tommy Cahill (Jake) are brothers, Sam is a stand up guy who joined the marines like his father and Tommy just got out of jail for armed robbery. Sam leaves his wife Grace to do another tour of Afghanistan only for his helicopter to be shot down and for the army to inform his family back in the United States that he is dead. Tommy begins to help Grace around the house and take care of her two daughters and there seems to be a bit of a spark between the two forming. Even Tommy’s dad who once loathed the sight of him seemed to be coming around to liking Tommy again, although he’ll never be Sam. A small kiss happens between Grace and Tommy and although nothing else comes of it, it is obviously a little strange that it happened in the first place. Meanwhile in Afghanistan Sam is still alive and being tortured by his captors, but is eventually freed by his fellow marines. Word gets back home that he is not dead and everyone rejoices but when Sam gets home the mental scars from war have left him a different man, unrecognizable to his family. He also suspects that something is happening between his brother and his wife and really starts to lose it.
Although there is an event in Afghanistan that is very important to the psyche of Sam Cahill the character, I think the film would have been much more powerful without the scenes in the Afghan country. The audience should have remained with the family in the U.S. and believed Sam was dead with them (although this is all given away in the trailer) and upon his return we should have been just as confused as to why Sam is crazy as his family in the movie. I think that would have helped make the film better in a number of ways: it would create more suspense, it would be more of a shocking ending to find out what happened to him while on tour, and it would have eliminated the piss poor scenes of Afghanistan that were probably actually New Mexico.
In regards to the trailer revealing that Sam is still alive and that he returns to American a little nuts, well I suppose that is important because that is what got me hooked and made me want to see the movie. I thought this was going to be truly powerful but it only gave me a small sock to the stomach. I would not go as far as to say do not go and see the movie Brothers, but I warn you that it is not that strong either. Perhaps Sheridan should direct the 50 Cent movie sequel I Died Tryin’, Was it Worth It?
Tobey MaGuire received a Golden Globe nomination for best performance by an actor for his portrayal of Sam Cahill and U2 also got a nom for their song “Winter” under best original score. Well if you read the previous article you will know how I felt about the Golden Globes….Most critics rather panned this film the way I am now so I don’t feel like I on crazy pills for not liking it very much. Most seemed to think it plays more like a traditional melodrama than the Susanne Bier film that inspired it, but did enjoy the acting of the three lead actors, which I would say weren’t bad. I would agree that Brothers is very much a Jim Sheridan film because it does create its own feel that is different from the Danish original, which could be a pro or a con depending on how much you liked the original or if you’ve even seen it. Some good conversation can be had about the psychological effect on soldiers returning home however and maybe that would end up more interesting than the actual film itself. Maybe. One thing that really sucked in my opinion was how there was this strange burgeoning relationship between Tommy and Grace that just lead nowhere, and was not retouched after Sam’s return from Afghanistan, but had it been it could have raised the ante so much higher.
Anywho, I was disappointed but not disgusted. You can watch the trailer here to see if you still want to see it or not.
I agree that the subject of soldiers’ post-traumatic stress is important but imo the overall story felt incomplete. i was surprised that it was not handled better considering the amount of talent that was a part of it.
the problem is the script and the trailers. the trailers were somewhat misleading setting up the premise as a love triangle, which essentially isn’t what the movie is about.
the “moment” that portman and gyllenhaal have is just that, a moment. it wasn’t suppose to go anywhere else and the explanation provided was satisfactory imo. i never got the sense they were attracted to each other. gyllenhaal decides he wants to be more of a help to her to honor his brother it seemed to me, and she accepts his help.
The story though is so uneven. maguire’s voiceover in the beginning says he would do anything to get back to his family, but there are implications as the film goes on that he feels more comfortable with his “men”.
did i miss something or did maguire’s character kill a fellow soldier because he believed his captors would send him home, or did he do it to keep them from killing him? this was a sticky point for me that didn’t ring true because either way they would have still killed him. The bigger question for me was why would he do something like that?
the performances on the other hand were very good. i think gyllenhaal gave one of his best performances, as did portman. maguire’s nuanced transitions from this affable, loving father at the start of the moving to a stoic, emotionless soldier while in captivity and then this quietly broken man once he returns home was truly heart wrenching.
i have not seen the original version and i agree that the focus should have stayed on the family and not the back and forth between them and maguire’s character. I also think what maguire’s character went through would have worked better in dreams or flashbacks. the effects of the experience would have impacted me more, but i think the way maguire inhabits the character is effective.
he is a good actor because he conveys emotions more authentically without theatrics; the way a real person would behave. outside the explosive kitchen scene, which I don’t feel was overdone, the performance is very quiet and tight.
you can see how his mind is working when he bluntly addresses gyllenhaal about whether he slept with portman. he’s eerily pleasant in his tone but you can feel that he is steadily loosing control. So by the time he addresses portman about it you really see that he is about to come unhinged.
Wow Shiloh, I think you summed up much of how I felt about the movie better than I did. I agree with what you said and think you should leave comments (or write for us) more often.
One of my mistakes this week was to not write about the films I saw immediately after I watched them, so today I had to go back into my thoughts and bang out a couple of reviews before I left it any longer. I think your comment helps me along, so thanks!
thanks for your comments, jared. in hindsight i think this is the kind of film that has to set in over time. i didn’t get the full impact of it because i was expecting to see what I saw in the trailers. so initially i came away from it a little frustrated because the movie was not marketed accurately.
i wasn’t disappointed that it turned out not to be about a love triangle, that aspect actually makes it a better film. something that has just occured to me as i am writing this is maguire’s character HAD to be fully aware neither he nor the fellow soldier were going to get out of that situation alive.
at one point the soldier even questions why maguire saved his life after the black hawk crashed. if i recall correctly maguire was a high ranking officer so now i’m thinking he kills the other soldier feeling he’d rather the guy die at his hand than their captors. so now he awaits his own death at their hands and has accepted that. when he ends up getting rescued it changes everything. now he has to live with what he’s done.
still there could have been more scenes showing maguire with his team, and show a little bit into their relationships. if it were more well-rounded like that if the audience is let in on the interplay between maguire’s character, his military family and his real family. it would have been a really powerful movie imo.