Quatre frères

As the Summer is winding down that means a couple things. One is that Fall/Winter feel-good, and more animated movies than you can count are coming to theaters. Also, it also means that the Summer Movies of 05 are closing. HOO-RAYYY!!! But wait hold on, before it is gone one of few good movies sneaks in. It is the new John Singleton movie Four Brothers, and what a good one it is.

Four Brothers is about four adopted degenerates whose mom is murdered and they come back to their old camping ground to, one bury her, and the other, to look for her killers and bury them as well. It starts out fantastic, then loses a little steam, and at the end comes together perfectly to have you talking about it at the water cooler the next day.

Mark Walbergh, Garrett Hedlund, Andre 3000, and Tyrese Gibson play the four brothers and do a fantastic job as playing the delinquents. They really look like they're right out of the mean streets of Michigan. They also act and speak like it as well. So if you're thinking about taking little kiddies (5-12) you might want to make sure they can handle it because there is enough profanity and shooting to go around. So, if you are looking for a good film this Summer, check one out you might pass over called Four Brothers.

I remember first seeing the trailer for this movie about a year ago before a movie I watched last summer and thought it looked very promising. A year later I had almost forgot about it until I started seeing commercials on TV and I got my hopes high. To be honest, this is probably the first movie that met my expectations.

I didn't go in expecting the greatest movie ever, I mean it does have Marky Mark in it and I'd hate to think he's be the start of my favorite movie of all time. But I did expect it to be exciting, emotional, and engaging... And it was.

One of the things this movie does best is show the love and commitment between the brothers. The chemistry between the actors was excellent and really added to the feel of the film. It takes a lot to get emotion out of me in a movie, I'm talking the beginning of Saving Private Ryan a lot, so I unfortunately didn't feel as much as some of the other people in the theater, but you know something is right when people cheer when the main characters kill bad guys and yell "NO!" when things don't go right. The emotions between the brothers also led to many very funny comic moments, which I did not expect to see as many as I did. I laughed many times.

Singleton is probably a better write than director, but he does a decent job through out. Most of the film is simple camera angles and what not, but there were a few moments, specifically a car chase, that was shot really well. It was all done in a manor that kept it realistic while keeping it interesting. It should also be noted that this movie had the SECOND most intense shoot out I've ever seen in a movie. Second only to, of course, the LA streets shoot out in Heat which, in my opinion, is the most intense 15 minutes ever filmed.

Acting was decent. Like mentioned before, the chemistry between the brothers was great, but there were many simple one-liners and Mark Wahlberg seems to play the same character way too often. Not really acting so much as reading lines in a tough way.

While this isn't the #1 movie of the year it definitely met my expectations and is a very, very good summer action flick of not more.

I have to admit "Four Brothers" is not a movie I was giddy about seeing. I didn't have really high expectations and why should I, much less you? Well, if you do have high expectations, you better lower them, because "Four Brothers" is not a deep and involving picture but is really more of a straight-forward action flick with a few sly one-liners thrown in for good measure.

There's not a single wince of brain activity throughout it, though the four "brothers" of the title (Mark Wahlberg, Andre Benjamin, Tyrese Gibson, Garrett Hedlund), explained by one character as being "total f**k-ups," do express a convincing degree of unity in that you actually believe they're related through their deceased, adopted mother Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan).

Wahlberg is Bobby Mercer, the courageous tough-talking eldest brother and the one with a chip on his shoulder. Not surprisingly, he does the most talking and is the obvious leader. Benjamin is Jeremiah Mercer, the only one of the four to really make something of himself in that he has a legitimate business, a wife (Taraji P. Henson) and children, and the closest ties to their mother. Gibson is Angel Mercer, a (former) soldier of fortune who has the ladies (including feisty Latina Sofia Vergara), the bragging rights, and the connections. Lastly, Hedlund is Jack Mercer, the youngest and grungiest of the four who's also a wannabe rocker and had the most troublesome childhood of them all.

The four are reunited at the funeral of their dear mom, who was viciously slain in a liquor store robbery. The brothers suspect that because of the particularly heinous nature of the crime, their mother may not have been some innocent bystander but was really executed, and the robbery itself was just there to throw off the cops.

After much contemplation and not even bothering to heed the warnings of two flaky detectives (played by Terrence Howard and Josh Charles), the four go after their mom's killer. It shouldn't be any surprise that they find their mother had been inadvertently drawn into the middle of some big insurance scheme or something along those lines (it's not really all that well explained), so the brothers look to settle the score with anyone - everyone.

As directed by John Singleton (whose outstanding landmark 1991 debut "Boyz N the Hood" remains the pinnacle of his career), "Four Brothers" is loud, dumb, and violent. The plot does a little more than resemble "The Sons of Katie Elder" (1965), which I haven't seen, but I doubt it was as lacking in intelligence as "Four Brothers."

However, the movie should be praised because it is strangely appealing (the totally PC leads notwithstanding), and the action is fast and furious, culminating in an impossible car chase through the ice-slicked Detroit streets during a snowstorm. And Singleton shows he hasn't completely lost my respect in that he's a good director during these scenes and succeeds in creating a believable atmosphere of unity amongst the four brothers.

I expect this movie to be a success, since it's the last week of the summer and the August season of blockbusters has passed. But hey, it's the last week of the summer, "Four Brothers" is playing, and so don't everybody rush to the theaters. OK?

7/10

I've always loved revenge movies, and this one fits the bill because it has four brothers trying to find out the truth of their mother's murder. The four brothers are all superb in their roles, as adopted brothers from foster care that went their separate ways, who come home to find out who killed their mother and why. The 8 minute AOL trailer on the movies sold me. Also superb is Terrence Howard as a Detroit cop who doesn't trust his own who is desperately trying to find out what happened himself. The plot is well executed through twists and turns. Mark Wahlberg just gets better and better. He was great in "Three Kings," and he is better here.

I had been scoping this movie since it was called "Untitled Mark Wahlberg Project'. Being directed by John Singleton and starring Mark Wahlberg it looked promising. I knew I wanted to see it after reading 5/5 reviews and seeing entertaining trailers of it. Eventually I saw it for a friends's birthday party, and I was impressed!

A standout thing in this movie is that it perfectly combines the action, comedy and drama genres together. At times it can have you laughing out loud, others it can have you quite sad and on the edge of your seat in excitement viewing the great action scenes.

The four lead actors do a great job. Mark Wahlberg plays a character which is different from what he normally plays and he pulls it off well. Andre Benjamin (or Andre 3000 from OutKast) does a great job too. He is definitely much better than just the usual rapper turned actor.

The story is great. It has a much thicker plot than what would be expected from a revenge movie. In fact, that is another standout thing, the original storyline.

Overall this is definitely a movie you should see. A refreshing change from the comedy remakes we normally see coming out of the theater. One that will be on my to buy list.