Brothers (R)Release Date: December 4th
Director: Jim Sheridan
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
A remake of the 2004 Danish film “Brodre,” “Brothers” is an emotional film that portrays the reality of what can, and sometimes does happen, when the effects of war are brought back home.
The film delves into the lives of a committed soldier and his family. Tobey Maguire plays Sam Cahill, a soldier husband who is being shipped off to Afghanistan, away from his wife, Grace (Natalie Portman) and his two daughters. Before he leaves, he picks up his brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is being released from prison. Tommy does not endure a very warm welcome from his father (Sam Shepard) whom clearly favors his marine son due to the fact that he was also once a marine. Upon arriving in Afghanistan, Sam encounters a helicopter crash and presumed dead when they cannot find his body. However, he survives (no spoiler there) and is picked up by the Taliban and held prisoner. After being tortured and having to endure an incident that leaves him guilt stricken, he returns home. Meanwhile, Grace tries to hold her family together with her two daughters whom are strangely unaffected, even for their age, by their father’s supposed death. Tommy helps Grace get through her loss by coming around often to redo her kitchen or play with the girls. Once Sam returns, everything changes. He is not the same person he was before he left and even his daughters are scared of him. He becomes paranoid at the idea that something went on between his wife and his brother and he lets the paranoia and guilt take over him, making you wonder what crazy thing he might do next.
“Brothers” is a step up on the performance scale for Tobey Maguire, who is most known for his character in “Spiderman.” He shows a very different side of him that was never seen in any of his other movies. Maguire does not exactly seem like the kind of person that can pull off the role of a soldier crazed by guilt, but he did it better than anyone else ever could. The acting by all of the characters including the young girls was superb. It is almost impossible not to really feel the emotion that is happening here. Gyllenhaal serves as a comic relief most of the time in order to lighten the mood of the film. It also has to be said that no two actors make a better pair of brothers on screen than Maguire and Gyllenhaal. The two of them not only have that brotherly chemistry on screen but they also look like they could be brothers in real life.
The best part about the movie is that it is not overly dramatic. Despite what the trailers show, it is not all about a man coming home from war and going ape-sh*t on his family for a reason he manifests in his head. The movie is steadily paced to the point where the audience should have no trouble understanding where the bottled up anger and guilt is coming from. This is a film based on emotions and events that are very real to soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress from war. The main message of the film is forgiveness. One brother screws up and ends up in prison but learns to forgive himself and change his immature, unreliable ways in order to help his brother’s family, while the other brother who is normally a responsible, loving family man strays toward the path of self-destruction. His manic tendencies come about because he cannot forgive himself.
“Brothers” is a movie worth seeing. It is not as fast paced as the trailers make it seem, and that is effective in engulfing you in the story because it slowly builds up different emotions instead of hitting you out of nowhere so you walk out thinking you just watched some crazy movie about a crazy soldier. It serves as an understanding for why some soldiers will never be the same after experiencing certain things during war in the Middle East, and it brings a message that anyone can learn from. This film is beautifully acted with a great story, definitely one that is worth the money.
Trailer:
