Brothers

Brothers had promise and potential going for it. Really solid cast. It started strong. The plot was interesting enough. I'm not sure if I should compare movies to generational classics, or the rest of the junk available to stream the past few years. I feel like Hollywood has never recovered from the writer's strike and it shows. This film is watchable, due to the low bar of available content. Do comedies now cater to the stupor of the low IQ majority of society? If you like low brow humor like seeing a grown man being jacked off by an orangutan, then you'll enjoy this movie. If you prefer witty sophisticated humor, you will roll your eyes a lot. I don't fault the actors. They played their roles. Dinklage is a true talent. Brolin shows range playing a believable character who isn't a tough guy with super powers. Marisa Tomei is great in everything. I wonder why she was uncredited. Fraser even pulled off the shady guard. Never been a fan of Glenn Close, but her prime was before my era. Brothers fails to draw you in. It's slow and lacks any kind of movie magic that makes you care about the outcome. You can't get invested in the characters' unrealistic plight. I'm sure the actors were desperate for a paycheck, but they're all better than this. It had its moments, and I made it to the end which is saying something I guess.

So many issues with this movie. Was everyone in this just bored and couldn't get another job, so they lowered themselves to do this? Every one of the actors in this movie are legendary in their own right, but this movie? They just proved that no matter how good of an actor you are, a bad script, bad directing, and low budget can cause great actors to be bad actors.

This movie was almost cartoonish and presented itself as if a child wrote it.

I'm all for silly and mindless comedies ... if they're funny. This movie was not funny. It was definitely mindless and barely cut the mustard at being silly. It was more absurd and overly exaggerated than anything else.

The biggest drawback of the film was simple: many of the characters in this film are hyper-exaggerated to the point where you can't take them seriously.

For example, Brendan Fraser, despite being a Hollywood icon with some seriously wonderful films under his belt, was maddening in this. His character had a cartoonish, over-the-top, somewhat childish behavior scheme that just wasn't believable.

I blame this misstep on the man setting the film's tone, director Max Barbakow. This was a massive step backwards from his most recent film "Palm Springs" which was quite enjoyable.

The relationship between Brolin and Dinklage, our titular "brothers," felt forced and, at times, dull throughout the film. Their arguments felt scripted, which is the exact opposite of what you want to feel in a film. I was never invested in their familial development because the writing never evoked those feelings with the audience. In short, the lackluster writing was only exacerbated by the sluggish on-screen chemistry.

It might be worth the watch if you've run through the many streaming catalogs available but shouldn't be at the top of your to-do list.

4/10.

There's a lot of pretty scathing reviews here. I read some before I started this and set my sights appropriately low. Maybe that's why I kinda liked it?

There was a lot of what people complained about - inconsistent tone, crass humor, slapstick scenes, overly stupid characters doing stupid things, predictable outcome.

Yes, all of the above.

I still laughed at a lot of it. Probably because the main actors played their parts to perfection. No matter the reason, if you laugh and enjoy something, go with it and don't think about why you liked it.

This is one of those movies. Don't overanalyze it. Don't worry about what others think. Just go with the ride.

I enjoyed this movie. It was kind of a modern remake of Twins with Schwarzenegger and Devito. It was more violent and raunchy than Twins but that's the modern part. Dinklage and Brolin are both great actors and seemed to have good chemistry on screen together. The story is mostly a road trip adventure with a bunch of run-in vignettes and it kept me entertained.

The 5ish rating it currently has doesn't do it justice. Brothers had its flaws, the worst of which was wasting the great talent of Marisa Tomei who deserved a better character/writing. But it also had genuinely funny to endearing moments that were worth the watch.