Brotherhood

We stumbled upon Brotherhood online, the tag-line looked interesting so we set out for Hollywood to catch a matinée showing on it's opening weekend. Just before it rolled a gentleman poked his head into the theater and thanked us for coming and asked that if we enjoyed Brotherhood could we please tell friends and family. It turned out the young man was Will Canon, the Director of Brotherhood. We had a nice chat and then it rolled. I really enjoyed the pace of the film, it started early and kept up throughout the story. Very believable, you can totally picture a frat initiation like this and their reactions to it. "We have to stick together and get our stories straight". The performances were strong, I remember Trevor Morgan from past roles although he is grown up and I appreciated his loyalty in the film. Mr. Foster was good as well, intense as he tries to keep it together. We enjoyed Brotherhood, intense, well paced and intriguing until the end. Nice work Will and we are telling our friends,

Viewed at the Festival de Cannes 2010

The fraternity (and sorority) system is something very peculiar to US colleges, but thanks to films such as Animal House people in other countries now have a very good idea how things work: all beer, parties and panty raids right? Not quite! Because Brotherhood takes the concept of initiation rites and works it into a very taut thriller about power and abuse and how far would you be willing to go to protect your fellows as opposed to doing the right thing.

Not wishing to give anything away (I don't write spoilers, even intentionally), what starts out as a prank, robbing a convenience store, spirals out of control as every attempt to put right the wrong just makes things worse. Pretty soon, to misquote Macbeth, those involved are now so deep in the brown and red stuff that turning back is no longer an option.

The kicker at the end, by the way, is excellent.

I can see why you would rate this movie poor and/or better than what I gave it. It has quite a few flaws and if you sit down and think about a few situations, they are either not entirely working or just too convenient to have happened like that. But then again you could do that with every other movie.

The good thing about this movie, is that it sets a pace from the beginning and it never really lets you down. So while you are trying to figure out what's happening, new events come along and throw other things into the mix. You might see a few things coming or not, but the fact, that the movie does set a mood and never steers away from it, is good thing in my book.

Of course you could argue, that the characters are not really likable and there might not be someone in here with whom you can identify. Touche. But if you can see past that point, there is a little movie to enjoy here, that never aims at being much more (though you could read a bit of a social commentary, if you want to)

As a depiction of the absurdity of fraternity life and the misguided "brotherhood" that often dominates the thinking of fraternity members, this film paints a grim picture of the multiple ways that hazing can go wrong. What begins as an absolutely ridiculous prank leads to an unlikely series of poor judgments and unfortunate events—arrogance and racism seem to be the principles that guide the fraternity members' sense of "brotherhood." One of the brothers (whose name I couldn't tell you, since the characters are all so flat and indistinct) actually has a sense of morality and fights his peers in an effort to do the right thing, but he is—of course—over-ruled. The story is mildly engaging, and numerous conflicts develop throughout the course of the film, but the distinguishing features of this film are desperation and an overabundance of fraternity guys shouting at each other in anger and fear. A more experienced and skilled screenwriter could have turned this raw story into something quite good.

How far would you go to join a frat? After a initiation prank goes wrong and a pledge gets shot they are worried that he will end up in jail. A simple job of trying to cover up the prank ends up snowballing into something that could ruin the lives of all involved. I was extremely surprised by this movie. I immediately got sucked in and was engrossed the entire time. It begins with a van of pledges staging robberies until one gets shot. The night gets progressively worse as they try to fix more and more problems that occur. Talking about this too much I will end up giving something away, and this is a movie that will have you on the edge of your seat through most of it. Every once is a while a movie comes along that surprises you so much that you can't stop talking about it to others and this is one of those movies. Watch this movie, you won't be disappointed. I give it a B+.

Would I watch again? - Yes, I think I would.

*Also try - Sorority Row & Twelve