Cinema Nova, 22/03/2010
Status: Beeeeeeehind!
I’m all for Hollywood movies, but there are some things that make me get my rant on. Things like bad camera work or extraneous computer graphics or budgets the size of several medium sized countries. But nothing makes me get my cranky on more than a Hollywood remake of a very good foreign language film. Mostly because it’s a waste of time - it’s exactly the same movie, but done with an American cast and without the subtitles. (Don’t even get me started on the upcoming remake of the British film Death at a Funeral which IS IN ENGLISH for Frank’s sake.)
So I was all set to hate Brothers, a remake of the Danish film Brodre (but the ‘o’ has a line through it like a zero, damned if I know how to make my keyboard do that though). But I got confused about being cranky somewhere close to the start of the film and found myself quite enjoying it. I’m pretty sure it was the performances that did it.
Sam, (TOBEY MAGUIRE, Spider-Man) plays a marine about to ship out to Afghanistan and Tommy (JAKE GYLLENHAAL, Zodiac) is his brother, newly released from prison. When Sam is presumed dead, Tommy steps in to the gap to support the wife (NATALIE PORTMAN, V for Vendetta) and daughters left behind. But Sam’s not actually dead, and when he returns home seriously scarred the shit of emotion hits the fan of tension.
Everyone is great in this - Maguire is creepy as all get out, Gyllenhaal treads a fine line between charming and vulnerable and Portman (although certainly not at her best) gives some pretty good grief. The other generations in the film - Sam’s daughters and his parents - are also terrific.
The direction, camera and music are all fairly unobtrusive, setting the performances front and centre. And it serves the film well. There’s not as much texture to this version as the Danish, but there is more texture than I’d expect from a Hollywood story of this type.
Although I still hate it when Hollywood remakes perfectly fine films, I couldn’t wear my cranky-pants for long in Brothers before replacing them with my mildly-bedrudging-pants and, eventually, my I-quite-enjoyed-that-pants.
