Brothers is a movie which has the pieces to succeed but those pieces do not end up coming together to form a satisfying whole. The story is certainly compelling. Natalie Portman and Jake Gyllenhaal are reliable performers who are certainly capable of making something good out of the material. The whole production is in the hands of well-respected director Jim Sheridan. The movie should work. But it really doesn't. You can see the potential here but Brothers falls well short of what it could have been.
Portman and Gyllenhaal do fine work but the key performer in Brothers is Tobey Maguire. And therein is the first problem with the film. Maguire never really convinces in the role. He plays Marine captain Sam Cahill, who as we meet him is about to head out for another tour of duty in Afghanistan. He'll be leaving behind his wife, Grace, and their two young daughters. Also left behind is Sam's brother, Tommy, the black sheep of the family. Tommy just got out of prison, he's always drunk, he's a complete loser. Sam loves his brother but nobody else wants to deal with Tommy. His own father, a military man who worships Sam, despises him. Sam's wife is disgusted by Tommy and does not want him around at all, ever. With Sam gone, Tommy will be rudderless, left to fend for himself. And then things get a lot worse. In Afghanistan, Sam's helicopter crashes. Sam is dead.
Only we see right away that Sam is not dead at all, he survived the crash and was taken prisoner by the Taliban. Which begs the question of why the U.S. military was in such a hurry to tell Sam's family that he was dead. Anyhow, while Sam's family tries to carry on and cope with his death the very much alive Sam does whatever he has to do to survive to try to get back to his family. The movie proceeds on these parallel tracks. What will happen if these tracks come together, if the "dead" Sam comes home? Certainly an interesting situation but there is the sense the movie fails to make the most of it. With Sam supposedly dead Tommy cleans up his act. He tries to help Grace around the house, grows close with her and her kids. It's a nice redemption story but uncomfortable for obvious reasons, especially as we keep cutting back to the trials and tribulations of Sam in Afghanistan. And, as you might expect when one is imprisoned by the Taliban, those are some pretty nasty trials.
There is the sense the movie chickens out a bit, Grace and Tommy never go as far with their relationship as you might expect them to. It becomes more about Tommy's relationship with Grace's kids. Sam's kids. The kids come to love Uncle Tommy, accepting him as more or less a new father. So what happens if the old father comes back? Awkward. And not just awkward, potentially frightening because after what he's been through Sam is not the same man he once was. The loving husband and father, the heroic Marine...that Sam is gone. He's a shell of the man he once was. How this all plays out ultimately is disappointing. You buy into Maguire as the nice Sam at the film's beginning. The not-so-nice Sam we see later on Maguire struggles with. The actor doesn't fit the role. He's trying really hard. Too hard. Rage and fury just don't come naturally to Maguire it seems, he's overacting trying to pull it off and it's just not believable. Portman, playing Grace, and Gyllenhaal, playing Tommy, are good. They work well with one another and they play off of Maguire well. Their reactions to Maguire work, Maguire himself doesn't. The story has some failings in the end, seen most clearly at a family birthday party where everybody behaves in ways which are hard to believe. It eventually comes to a big dramatic, climactic (though overacted) head...and then the movie just kind of ends. There is very little in the way of resolution. For a movie which seemed to hold great promise in the end there is not much satisfaction.
Portman and Gyllenhaal do fine work but the key performer in Brothers is Tobey Maguire. And therein is the first problem with the film. Maguire never really convinces in the role. He plays Marine captain Sam Cahill, who as we meet him is about to head out for another tour of duty in Afghanistan. He'll be leaving behind his wife, Grace, and their two young daughters. Also left behind is Sam's brother, Tommy, the black sheep of the family. Tommy just got out of prison, he's always drunk, he's a complete loser. Sam loves his brother but nobody else wants to deal with Tommy. His own father, a military man who worships Sam, despises him. Sam's wife is disgusted by Tommy and does not want him around at all, ever. With Sam gone, Tommy will be rudderless, left to fend for himself. And then things get a lot worse. In Afghanistan, Sam's helicopter crashes. Sam is dead.
Only we see right away that Sam is not dead at all, he survived the crash and was taken prisoner by the Taliban. Which begs the question of why the U.S. military was in such a hurry to tell Sam's family that he was dead. Anyhow, while Sam's family tries to carry on and cope with his death the very much alive Sam does whatever he has to do to survive to try to get back to his family. The movie proceeds on these parallel tracks. What will happen if these tracks come together, if the "dead" Sam comes home? Certainly an interesting situation but there is the sense the movie fails to make the most of it. With Sam supposedly dead Tommy cleans up his act. He tries to help Grace around the house, grows close with her and her kids. It's a nice redemption story but uncomfortable for obvious reasons, especially as we keep cutting back to the trials and tribulations of Sam in Afghanistan. And, as you might expect when one is imprisoned by the Taliban, those are some pretty nasty trials.
There is the sense the movie chickens out a bit, Grace and Tommy never go as far with their relationship as you might expect them to. It becomes more about Tommy's relationship with Grace's kids. Sam's kids. The kids come to love Uncle Tommy, accepting him as more or less a new father. So what happens if the old father comes back? Awkward. And not just awkward, potentially frightening because after what he's been through Sam is not the same man he once was. The loving husband and father, the heroic Marine...that Sam is gone. He's a shell of the man he once was. How this all plays out ultimately is disappointing. You buy into Maguire as the nice Sam at the film's beginning. The not-so-nice Sam we see later on Maguire struggles with. The actor doesn't fit the role. He's trying really hard. Too hard. Rage and fury just don't come naturally to Maguire it seems, he's overacting trying to pull it off and it's just not believable. Portman, playing Grace, and Gyllenhaal, playing Tommy, are good. They work well with one another and they play off of Maguire well. Their reactions to Maguire work, Maguire himself doesn't. The story has some failings in the end, seen most clearly at a family birthday party where everybody behaves in ways which are hard to believe. It eventually comes to a big dramatic, climactic (though overacted) head...and then the movie just kind of ends. There is very little in the way of resolution. For a movie which seemed to hold great promise in the end there is not much satisfaction.