Sons of Philadelphia

Brothers by Blood certainly has a impressive ambitions and a lot of thematic weight with its attempts to explore the cycle of violence and the inability to process grief and loss. Unfortunately they are let down by the films overly restrained approach which drains the film of any pace, nuance or emotional heft.

However, it's not without a few positives. Matthias Schoenaerts quiet and understated presence is always a pleasure to watch even if he's played this role one too many times and it contrasts Joel Kinnaman's loud and threatening persona rather well. The music by Séverin Favriau is really beautiful and threatens to give the film some actual life.

Welp, there goes 105 minutes of my life I'll never get back. What's worse, is that it felt like 3+ hours.

Experienced writer and newb director Jeremie Guez wrote the worst screenplay in the history of mobster films. How is this film classified as "action, crime, drama"? Zero action, 5 mins of crime and 100 mins of boredom. Who funded and greenlit this sloth? A 5th grade drama class could've come up with a better "mobster" film. There were tons of plot and technical issues, and the timeline back and forths made the already convoluted and pointless scenes seem less interesting than paint drying.

Matthias Schoenaerts spent more than half the film staring at the ground in silence (probably contemplating why he agreed to do this film), and the rest into space or shadow boxing (the point of this was??), with maybe a total of 5-10 minutes of dialogue. Either he didn't want to be there, or his character was written in as the most boring straight faced lamest mobster character ever developed.

The rest of the casting and performances were fairly decent, and the cinematography and score were good. It really had the markings to be a great film... it's just too bad the screenplay was so terrible. If you want to get even with someone, have them watch this and tell them it's amazing, to watch until the end, because it's worth it. They'll never speak to you again.

This movie fell short when it could of been great. It was armed with a good story, actors and setting all lined up. Unfortunately, it just didn't formulate. The film started well then about half way in becomes dull. I just expected more, especially when it came to the ending. When all said and done this movie is was just ok.

Another east coast tough guy / mobster movie but with very little depth.

The acting is good for the most part. As is the filming.

It's just the plot and script takes you nowhere for way too long.

I've no idea why this has received such poor reviews, I thought it was very good. The acting was great all round and the photography is excellent.. if you like the films of James Gray then you'll probably like this.. worth a watch