OK, Brothers is the worst movie I saw from 2009. Yes, it was worse than Precious.
However, it was far more entertaining. This failure of a film is laughable and enjoyable to anyone with an eye for bullshit.
Where do I start? Let's just start where the movie starts: patriotism.
The first thing we see is the image of an American flag being hoisted up by some soldiers,
with some really, really bad cliché, shitty redneck attempt at a dramatic soundtrack.
I have nothing against patriotism, but I felt like this movie was kinda beating me over the head with it.
- [clip] It gives you a reason to support the troops. - [YMS] D'aww! He's a real hero!
This movie presents the army and the most black and white way possible,
so you never really have to make up your own mind about the characters, it's kinda just like,
"We're the good guys, and they're the bad guys, and we're fighting the bad guys!"
[clip] - Who are the bad guys? - The ones with the beards.
[YMS] Nothing about this movie is subtle. NOTHING!
Everything is pushed in your face, because they think you're too stupid to understand anything more complicated.
Jake Gyllenhaal, he's such a bad guy, look at how bad he is, he needs to put his life in order, he needs to prioritize, aww, what a rascal!
He doesn't obey society, like everybody else does. Aww, look at him!
Oh, Tobey Maguire, oh look, he takes care of his family, he's such a nice guy, isn't he a nice guy? He's such a hero, he's American,
he is Mr. Family Values. D'aww! Isn't it funny, the juxtaposition between these characters that are brothers? D'aww!
So, we see Tobey Maguire in a helicopter with a bunch of Marines, and their helicopter gets shot at by some fireworks,
as they're over top of what appears to be the only lake in Afghanistan.
One of the Marines falls out of the helicopter with a hilarious visual effect,
and it kinda just cuts away from the scene, without showing us what happened to the other Marines.
This is where the plot starts. And it doesn't make any sense!
The very next scene is two army dudes showing up at Natalie Portman's door, to tell her that her husband dead.
WHAT!
You know why that doesn't make sense? One word: Dog tags.
Shit!
If Tobey Maguire's alive, how did they come to the conclusion that he's dead?
The only way I can imagine them rationally being able to assume that Tobey Maguire's dead,
would be that his helicopter blew up entirely and left nothing behind,
because we all know that the only thing that can survive an explosion is a plane-jacker's passport.
[rimshot]
But that's not possible, because Tobey Maguire didn't fly out the window or anything, like that other guy,
and he'd still have a skeleton left behind. I guess when the army decides who's KIA, they just pick names out of a hat.
Can someone please explain to me why people like this movie, because of the 'acting'?
When I watch this movie, I see three types of actors:
a level-headed actor whose performances are good, regardless of the director;
an actor that relies entirely on the director for their performances;
and Tobey Maguire.
[slowed down rimshot]
Jake Gyllenhaal, it's kinda hard for him to do a really bad job, it wasn't amazing, but it was good. At least he had a nice gerd berd.
Natalie Portman did nothing but act like a robot the entire time.
Tobey Maguire would just switch back and forth from really robotic and no emotion, to very, very angry, and very, very, very angry,
and freaking out angry, and very concerned angry, and all different types of angry,
and even when he was angry, I couldn't even take him seriously.
It's Tobey Maguire, how can I take him seriously? Watching him freak out is hilarious.
[clip] Christ! Do you know what I fucking...
You know what I did? I fucking destroyed for you. You fucking bitch!
You're fucking my brother!
Do with these fucking hands, Christ!
[YMS] This movie has even inspired me to make a photo album called "The Many Faces of Tobey Maguire"
And if having Tobey Maguire in the movie isn't bad enough already,
everything that Natalie Portman's character does is entirely under-acted.
They were like, "What is Natalie Portman gonna do, now that Tobey Maguire's dead?"
And then they were like, "Let's just get her to do the most cliché thing possible, and have her watch family videos,
except, instead of her actually having any emotional response to it, let's just have her staring blankly at the screen, like a fucking robot."
Now, some of you might be saying, "Hey, what about a few seconds ago? I just saw her acting, you son of a bitch." And it's true:
in this scene, she does actually look a little sad, but given the gravity of the situation, there should have been something more.
The truth is, I wouldn't even be complaining about this, if people hadn't said that this is a movie of "great performances",
and if you're still trying to defend that, then I'm sure that you've seen the movie The Messenger, right?
You know, the movie that came out the exact same year.
You know, the movie where Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson play two guys in the casualty notification team,
telling people that their family members died in the war.
You might not have heard of this movie; in fact, Brothers made thirty times as much as this movie did.
However, this movie knew how to show emotion.
[clip] - I have bad news for you, Mrs. Galindo - Can you just leave us for a second?
Your husband, Corporal Mario Galindo, was killed last night in Iraq by an improvised explosive device.
The Secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deepest sympathy to you.
A Casualty Assistance Officer will contact you in the next few hours.
- We're very sorry for your loss, ma'am. - All right, all right.
[YMS] It's really frustrating trying to make this argument, because I know that some people aren't going to be convinced.
I know that some people are going to say "Well, I felt something from scene, so therefore, it was good acting,
and the characters were believable, and it is a sound script with no flaws. Doy-oy-oy-oy-oy!"
You can still feel something from a sucky movie, if you're not using your brain.
I don't even think that the problem with Natalie Portman's character is even Natalie Portman's fault,
it's Jim Sheridan fault. D'you know why? Because this is what we see this character do after her husband dies:
she blinks a couple times, she looks sad, and that is it.
Don't fucking tell me that this woman, who thinks her husband is dead, did not go through some emotional breakdown.
We see her later, in scenes where she is up at... late at night, and she's just up late at night. I know we see her crying for a little bit,
but that was more like me crying when I found out Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! was cancelled.
[clip] You're fucking my brother!
[YMS] Do not tell me that these little girls were not balling their eyes out, and screaming at the top of their lungs,
theoretically, within the movie's universe. Do not tell me that they didn't have some sort of... big cry fest.
And don't fucking tell me that it wasn't necessary in the movie to have those things.
This is a movie called Brothers, this is a drama, this is about the family members going through this hard period in their life,
this is what the movie's about, you'd have to be stupid to think that the characters wouldn't have gone through something more,
but Jim Sheridan was like, "Ahh, whatever, it'll be too much work. I'll just shoot this scene, and this scene,
and it'll be, like, they'll just talk the dialogue, and they'll say this line."
But that's what happens with North American movies that are stolen from foreign films, they have the script, nothing else.
They don't give a shit. They just care about the lines of dialogue, and then change everything, anyway.
By the way, I didn't even see the original. I didn't see Brødre.
I couldn't find a good download, I mean, I couldn't find a rental copy. In my local video store.
Subtitles by JorWat