Director Jim Sheridan (left) with Jake Gyllenhaal (as Tommy Cahill, center) and Tobey Maguire (as Sam Cahill, right) on the set of BROTHERS, an Alliance Films release.
There is not a single person in this movie that doesn’t do an incredible job. The cast is incredibly talented and distinguished and the mood created is totally tense, and it had me breathing deep throughout a lot of the film, but it never made any sense to me. The tension was held in place for reasons that seemed so ridiculous.
In the buttoned down culture of Denmark it might make sense to keep some secrets bottled up until they explode into some kind of crazy shitstorm. But in America, people spout off all the time about what they think and how they feel. All Tommy had to do was tell his brother he didn’t sleep with his brother’s wife, and all Sam had to do was talk to someone about what happened – like his Dad or something.
It also could be, and I say this without having watched the Danish original, that whatever trauma Sam endured while at war in the original film, might have better explained Sam’s fixation on his brother sleeping with his wife. His own guilt manifesting the way it did, never made sense to me.
So I think the cultural differences are what kept this movie from completely coming together. I’m sure that the Danish one is great – and while it might still come off weird how they keep stuff bottled up, at least it’ll be in context.
More will be revealed this Sunday, including my distaste for the music they used.
Brothers is coming to DVD from Alliance Films on March 23, 2010.
