DVD Reviews

Brothers (2009) – Blu-ray Review

By Frankie Dees Mar 22, 2010, 15:57 GMT

Captain Sam Cahill (Maguire) is embarking on his fourth tour of duty, leaving behind his beloved wife (Portman) and two daughters. When Sam’s Blackhawk helicopter is shot down in the mountains of Afghanistan, the worst is presumed, leaving an enormous void in the family. Despite a dark history, Sam’s charismatic younger brother Tommy (Gyllenhaal) steps in to fill the family void. ...more

Jim Sheridan’s star-studded emotionally bruising remake of Susanne Bier’s 2004 Danish original was criminally underseen this past fall.

The film features Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman acting their chops off but failed to find an audience. Now is your chance to make amends.

Keeping fairly close to the original script-wise, writer David Benioff (‘Troy’, um, ‘Wolverine’) mostly shifts the focus to accommodate the younger cast and allow more calculated scenes of dramatic payoff - which is director Jim Sheridan’s forte with films like ‘My Left Foot’, ‘In the Name of the Father’ and ‘In America.’

This ‘Brothers’ is an inspection of the toils of war on the home-front and family life versus Bier’s original - which was centered more around a love triangle though a lot of scenes have been carried over almost verbatim.

We start off in small-town America, where Marine Capt. Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) is about to be shipped off on his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan but not before his wife Grace (Natalie Portman), two young daughters Isabelle (Bailee Madison) and Maggie (Taylor Geare), and parents (Sam Shepard and Mare Winningham) welcome home the black sheep of the family, Sam’s brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) from a stint in prison for some petty theft.

Grace is welcoming to Tommy but it’s no secret that she is no fan. Sam and Tommy’s dad Hank (a Vietnam vet) has always regarded Tommy scornfully and in the shadow of Sam who faithfully followed in his footsteps to step up and fight for his country. So a last awkward meal is had between the family with one son coming home and another leaving.

There are no spoilers in revealing that once in Afghanistan, Sam is presumed dead from a helicopter crash and Grace has to come to terms with that with two young daughters to keep a strong face for.

Seeing this as a bid for some sort of familial redemption or possibly because he just wants to do the right thing, Tommy becomes an unexpected source of support for Grace and her children and indeed his actions surprise both Grace and his father.

And as Tommy help’s remodel Grace’s long-suffering kitchen, Sam is indeed alive and suffering at the hands of the Taliban who torture and then force him to commit a terrible act of violence.

Rescued soon after, Sam is sent home a changed and scarred soul who becomes increasingly distant with his family and then dangerously paranoid of Grace and Tommy. A climatic dinner sequence brings all the tension to the forefront that will either cure or destroy the Cahill family.

Sheridan’s gift is in his impeccable taste for the right cast be it frequent collaborator Daniel Day-Lewis or Samantha Morton and Djimon Hounsou, both nominated for ‘In America’, and he does it again here with casting the three young leads with the best actors of their generation.

Natalie Portman is given one of her more restrained adult roles here and can simply show us she can act again without being surrounded by toys, masked vigilantes and expensive CGI.

Gyllenhaal has the less flashy role but excels with a character that needs to transition from an aimless troublemaker to a dependable brother-in-law and uncle with scenes between Tommy and Grace not always playing out as you expect - which makes Sam’s breakdown all the more effectively tense.

Tobey Maguire as Sam is a pyrotechnics class in acting and another fine return to form for a once-great child actor (see above: Portman) that got bogged down in a franchise (he was great as ‘Spider-man’ but a thespian skill showoff, those film’s were not).

In fact, outside of ‘Spider-man’, Maguire has only appeared in two notable live-action films in the past decade, a smaller role in the ho-hum ‘The Good German’ and the lead in the so-so ‘Seabiscuit’. ‘Wonderboys’ was his last film as a young talent and it’s nice to see Maguire stretch again with some final scenes that tell me that Maguire was itching to get back in the game.

That ‘Spider-man 4’ fell apart may not be a bad thing as I would rather see both Raimi and Maguire do other things…

Also notable is a strong performance by Shepard and particularly touching turns by the two young actresses playing the daughters. Like ‘The Hurt Locker’, ‘In the Valley of Elah’ and even this past weekend’s failure of “Green Zone’, audiences seem to inexplicably cold-shoulder great films that deal with the war assuming I guess that only one note is being played with these films.

Yet what features most prominently is that we’re dealing with i.e. above a great thriller, mystery and action film respectively - a little illumination or education with our entertainment won’t kill us folks.

The AVC 2.35:1 1080p encode looks great for what’s a lower-budget mostly small-scale drama. A soft but detailed color palette is used in the small-town scenes with appropriately more muted colors used for New Mexico standing in for Afghanistan.

There’s some light grain that adds some texture but this a solid video presentation. The DTS-HD Master Aud track is subdued and dialogue-driven with the film offering little excuse to show off but fits the material perfectly.

Special Features start off with an audio commentary from director Jim Sheridan that’s a great listen and extremely informative with tidbits learned about everything from directing actors and the U2 song used to the differences between his film and the original Danish version.

‘Jim Sheridan: Film and Family’ is a fifteen-minute featurette about his mostly family-driven pics and a look at how he works with actors and children. ‘Remade in the USA: How Brødre Became Brothers’ takes a look at the original film versus the remake. A high-def trailer rounds things out.

‘Brothers’ may have been overlooked this past fall, but you owe it to yourself to catch up with it. Great performances by all involved with Portman and Maguire showcasing some chops that I haven’t seen from them in years with Sheridan getting back on track after his odd 50-cent biopic misstep. Highly recommended.