Brothers in Arms

"Brothers in Arms" is the latest in the sub-genre of 'hip-hop westerns', which stills strikes me as a great idea, but has yet to be realized into something more worthy than direct to video fare (Wild Wild West included). This film doesn't change that. It does have passable performances from Gabriel Casseus and Raymond Cruz to off-set the outright horrible ones of Antwon Tanner and Kenya Moore. Better than average (at least for direct to video) cinematography is overshadowed by the stale production design, dismal writing, dead action sequences, and repetitive stock hip-hop music. Hip-hop could hack it in a western, just hear T-Bone Burnett's work with the Nappy Roots in "The Ladykillers" and imagine the possibilities. But here, it's a complete distraction. How Jean-Claude La Marre ever nabbed David Carradine for this, I can only guess, but he does as good a job as anyone could've done with the writing and, in this kind of wreck, professionalism is the most you could ask for.

The last 5 minutes are so pretentious and melodramatic, they border on unwatchable. Please, save the song for the credits next time. If you want the scene to be powerful, give us a character that we have a reason to care about.

Here's to the next effort in this sub-genre, may it be something deep and resonant... Ernest Dickerson, where are you when we need you!

First of all, I feel I should say that I am a HUGE fan of westerns. So much so, that I am often very forgiving if a western has some shortcomings. But with "Brothers In Arms", I simply could not accept what it had to offer. There are so many things wrong with it. There's the modern hip-hop music score. The characters dressed in costumes that not only look too modern, but don't look like they've been lived in long. The look of the movie is wretched, being badly photographed, badly lit, and filtered to look too murky. The locations in and out of town look boring. The shootouts are badly directed and edited. There's modern slang spoken. There is a female sheriff. And if you put all of his footage together, David Carradine has no more than five minutes of screen time. I can't see this appealing to either an "urban" audience or for western addicts.

This is one of those movies that I couldn't even sit all the way through, and I have sat through some absolute crap in my days, even many Baldwin movies! I don't mind the blacksploitation genre, but this one was just terrible, acting was terrible, story line was terrible, costumes were cliché and let's not even get into the historical plausibility.

The bottom line is: even if you can get this movie for free or see it with a friend, you'll regret the hour+ of your life that you spent watching it (or less time if you can't sit through it like me).

On the plus side it may be good for a laugh if you're drunk at home with some mates, although it still doesn't have the drunken laughter appeal of something like Python or any of the 70's and 80's cult movies.

If you want a serious movie, don't get this, if you want a drunken laugh then only get this if ALL of the 80's horror films are already hired out.

I gave it a score of one because 'awful' really is fitting.

I am about 70% of the way through this movie and I had to stop. I couldn't go any further after seeing the "wooden" teller counter in the bank bow under the weight of "Linc". I couldn't stop laughing after that. This movie is agonizing. It's painful to watch. I've always told people who criticize some of the "B" level horror films that I'm in a habit of watching that you have to suspend reality for two hours to enjoy most films. It's Hollywood. Enjoy the fantasy trip. But this film won't even let me suspend common sense, let alone reality. I'm guessing that the movie is supposed to be set sometime in late 1800's. I'm guessing because the movie is not even convincing me that it could have been set in any reasonable past time frame. Where to begin...the clothes...the clothes are a joke. It's the wild west meets MTV. Is it a movie or a music video...hmmm???? Check out the woman in the bank robbing gang. Women may have dressed that way in the wild west bordellos, but not for trail riding and bank robbing. The situations are laughable. You can't convince me that there were any women sheriffs and/or deputies or women bank tellers in the wild west days. The acting is deplorable. Where did they get the mayor and his wife...some Disney movie? And who's idea was it to bring Bill (David Carradine's character from Kill Bill) back to life and send him back in time to the wild west? Carradine doesn't have much to lose by starring in this film. He's already at the end of his career. But for the countless young actors and actresses who made the bitter error of choosing this vehicle as a ladder climbing notch in their belts have opted for a bullet hole in their careers. I'm going to try to make it through the balance of this film and return it shamefully to my local Blockbuster store. But I highly recommend this film for file 13. You know, the round file...the trash.....

I can't believe someone would actually want to put this film out for the public to view. Acting was pitiful on most parts (Caradine and some of the other veteran actors excepted). Costumes ranged from tight leather pants and tube top to "Western" costumes from a bargain Halloween store. From the wimpy bank manager to the W.C. Fields mayor, characterization was corny and I felt embarrassed for the actors. I can't even begin to describe the errors and bastardization of Western life and culture. An absolute travesty. This relates to BAD as "Unforgiven" relates to great. I think a 5-year-old could write a better story, film it and direct it... probably even act in it! If someone wants to play cowboy and film it for fun with friends fine, but don't bother publishing it. I do believe you should ad at least a ZERO to your voting scale.