Brotherhood

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.

One doesn't need a PhD to predict negative consequences when some college frat boys pressurize a fraternity applicant to carry out a convenience store robbery as part of their induction process. Needless to say, the hold-up is less than a complete success, and "Brotherhood" finds itself in similar territory to "Very Bad Things" as the fall-out from this reckless prank spirals disastrously out of control during the course of a long night. Each proposed remedy pushes a bad situation further into the catastrophe zone, and the bonds of this intelligence-challenged brotherhood soon start disintegrating under the strain of the situation. The growing crisis is laced with moments of high tension and dark comedy, but unfortunately any audience sympathy for these unpleasant frat boys is diluted by their misogyny, racism, selfishness and stupidity. The film boasts some excellent cinematography and solid acting performances from the cast, but its principal drawback is the relentless frenzied tempo combined with a lack of variation in emotional pitch - a roller-coaster ride in a perpetual state of near-hysteria eventually becomes somewhat exhausting.

I was in a fraternity in college, so I enjoy watching movies about Greek life. Unfortunately, they all tend to be dumb slasher movies or cheesy sex comedies. I saw the description for Brotherhood and decided to watch it.

From the beginning scene, I was sucked in. I won't go into plot details, but the story keeps you guessing and is engrossing. The acting from the unknown cast is excellent was well- Jon Foster is especially good as the head of the fraternity.

And the twist at the end of the film was a great touch. The nice thing about the twist is that it's not easy to predict, but also did not feel forced.

I wouldn't necessarily call this a movie about Greek life, but it's a terrific indie drama/thriller set in the world of fraternities.

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,

This is a very nicely done movie, which is very engaging, fast and interesting. It keeps you watching throughout the movie. While some things are predictable , many are not. I don't understand how come the rating is just around 6. It's much better than most movies you see nowadays. It's about a bunch of kids going through the induction process to get into a frat. The movie begins with one prank, which goes way off. It gets them into trouble ,and more trouble and more trouble. The best part about this movie is the way it ends. I had absolutely no idea that this is what was going to happen ! Do watch it , it's a good movie.