Brother's Justice

Without professional training or proper structure for pitching a film, Dax Shepard goes out on a whim to raise his brain child, "Brother's Justice", a Martial-Arts film starring himself, and abandons his career in comedy to dedicate himself to it's production full-time. Surprisingly, Dax recruits long time friend Nate Tuck as his producer and they embark on a quest for funding, a cast, and advertisement in hopes of bringing "Brother's Justice" to the big screen. Dax has such high hopes for the film, he even hires David Palmer, who is also the director of the actual movie, to film its progress as a documentary.

Now to be clear, this film is a mockumentary about Dax Shepard making a movie, if you were confused.

The Dax portrayed in the movie, struggling to bring his magnum opus to a theater near you, seemed like he also struggled to bring comedy in the film in some areas. Surely there were hilarious moments in the film, as you would expect, but other times Dax was trying too hard to be funny, and even though it is a mockumentary, it seemed a little too dumb at times. However, I did enjoy it very much. The movie was fresh the whole way through, and was pleasantly entertaining and original. Shepard did not slack off in light of the resources available to do the film, but I still feel it had eminent potential to be a gigantic success if a few extra hands were involved in the writing process. Although it wasn't as powerful as prejudged, it wouldn't hurt to take the blindfold off "Brother's Justice" and have a pretty good laugh.

The plot: A comedian decides to quit making comedies and, instead, become an international martial arts superstar, despite being thoroughly incompetent.

There are some funny moments in this movie, but most of them involve the co-stars, rather than the leads. I can see what they were intending, but I'm not really sure that it worked. Much of the movie is meant to be stupid or intentionally bad, which I guess works, but it fails to be funny. The execution just isn't all that great. I think the biggest problem is that they just couldn't find a balance between the self-conscious, ironic, intentionally bad scenes and the funny scenes.

It's not horrible, but it's a bit uneven, and there are parts that are a bit slow and boring. It's also got lots of warmed-over Internet memes, like Chuck Norris references, ironic homophobia, ironic homoeroticism, and an ironic appreciation of bad B movies. If you still laugh at Chuck Norris jokes, five years after most of the Internet got tired of them, then this is the movie for you. If you can't imagine living your life without copious amounts of irony, this is the movie for you. If you're a bit tired of all this stuff, then I'd advise you just watch a Christopher Guest mockumentary.

A "documentary" about Dax Shepard retiring from comedy so he can pursue his dream of becoming a Martial Arts action star. Seriously. OK, maybe not so seriously. The beginning has Dax and his producing partner Nate Tucker going from agent to lawyer to producers to actors to directors to sell his karate idea "Brother's Justice", well, at this stage it's really just a title. When it's funny, it's very funny.

The problem is, when it's not funny, it's not anything. For an hour and a half run time, it's awfully long for a one-joke movie. Because really, that's all this is, one joke about Shepard trying to sell Hollywood on the idea of him becoming an action star in the ilk of Steven Segal. The idea that this documentary is serious is supposed to be funny, but I can't take this seriously. I've seen enough of Shepard in both comedy and drama roles that I know he's not actually this stupid.

It's cool that so many Hollywood hot-shots were willing to make themselves look like arrogant jerks for the sake of Dax Shepard and this (documentary? movie? —I don't know what to call it). At least their parts mostly work because Jon Favreau, Ashton Kutcher, Bradley Cooper and Tom Arnold can all do comedy and drama.

Ironically, unlike Dax's "successful" comedies like "Employee of the Month" (2006) and "When in Rome" (2010), "Brother's Justice" actually has all the elements of a good story: a sympathetic character (who doesn't want to see a good guy succeed in Hollywood?), conflict (Dax thinks it's a good idea, Hollywood does not), drama, comedy, and then the idea that friendship rises above everything. But none of that really works here.

Unintentionally, "Brother's Justice" just proves that Dax Shepard is best suited for comedy, or maybe that's its entire purpose. I never was sure if I was supposed to take this seriously or as one long joke. I'm sorry Dax, but I will always highly value your dramatic work in "Parenthood" and "The Freebie" (2010).

Director Dax Sheppard's 2 other movies are really worthwhile watching: "Hit and Run" and "CHIPS" are both really original, exciting and witty, but this directorial debut is NOT a movie at all, but a fake documentary, that wants to make fun of the difficulties of getting a movie made in Hollywood.

Quentin Tarantino has said it. Steven Spielberg has said the same thing before: just start making a movie with nothing IF you are REALLY passionate about directing. And this mockumentary is the result. He cant get any financing to fund this movie idea of his, so let's make fun of this whole tiresome process of NOT finding money for a picture by making a fake documentary about it. Unfortunately it ismt witty enough all the time to be captivated by it. Better watch Dax Shepard's other 2 movies, those other 2 REAL movies are absolutely terrific!

I saw Brother's Justice at the Paramount theater for the Austin Film Festival and loved it.

The film, shot documentary style, follows Dax Shepard as he tries to make the leap from being a comedic actor to becoming an international martial arts action star a'la Chuck Norris. It's an 80 minute, deliciously awkward leap for our delusional hero. As he pitches his idea for his break-out film BROTHER'S JUSTICE to the industry types that surround him, he systematically gets knocked down by his agent, his lawyer, and his A-list connections (very funny cameos by Ashton Kutcher and Jon Favreau).

But Dax is a weirdly likable, egomaniacal machine that won't be stopped. With the help of his "stand by your man" producer, Nate Tuck and his unlikely co-star for BROTHER'S JUSTICE, an equally delusional Tom Arnold, we watch Dax go to extreme lengths to make his action star rise. Public appearances go badly...really badly, ribs are cracked, bromances are broken.

There are some guffaw-inducing cameos by Bradley Cooper and one of my all time favorite scene-stealers, David Koechner, and Tom Arnold hasn't been this funny or neurotic since True Lies.

Overall it feels like the kind of movie that will get funnier with multiple viewings. There are so many quotable one-liners and I can see it having a cult following over time. I really hope it gets a theatrical release.

See it if you like: a) funny b) weird c) junk jiggling close-ups in speeding European hot rods d) funny, weird, junk jiggling close-ups in speeding European hot rods