Plot: Brothers tells the story of a reformed criminal whose attempt at going straight is derailed when he reunites with his sanity-testing twin brother on a cross-country road trip for the score of a lifetime. Dodging bullets, the law, and an overbearing mother along the way, they must heal their severed family bond before they end up killing each other.
Review: Some of the best dramatic actors have started as comedic performers. The same can not always be said about the reverse. Peter Dinklage has proven himself skilled at any genre he puts his talents to, while Josh Brolin has not appeared in a role like this in a long time. Brothers boasts the creative team behind the time loop hit Palm Springs and the upcoming remake of The Toxic Avenger but lacks the creativity nor distinctiveness of those projects. Brothers feels like a relic from decades ago, with jokes that fall flat, an uneven tone throughout, and a bizarre subplot involving a masturbating orangutan that feels beneath everyone involved. Brothers is buoyed by the charming on-screen presence of Dinklage and Brolin, who do everything they can to save this movie from the annals of forgettable streaming fare.
Opening with brothers Moke and Jady as teenagers, we see their mother, Cath, played by Yellowstone‘s Jennifer Landon, stealing some priceless emeralds before running from the cops. Left to their own devices, Moke (Josh Brolin) and Jady (Peter Dinklage) grow from delinquents to full-fledged criminals. Jady gets caught and sent to prison, where he spends five years before getting sprung by a crooked guard, Farful (Brendan Fraser), who wants the stolen emeralds. Moke has since gone straight and has a pregnant wife, Abby (Taylour Paige), and leads an uneventful life. With Jady back in his life, Moke joins his brother on his journey to find the stones before Farful catches up with them. Along the way, they run into Cath (Glenn Close) and have some heartfelt moments as they trek to recover the jewels while trying to find their familial connection lost over the years.
Clocking in at under ninety minutes, Brothers is lean to begin with and yet still feels like it is missing something to give it purpose. Brendan Fraser, who filmed this movie close to his Osar-winning turn in The Whale, is incredibly over-the-top in a way we have not seen since his Furry Vengeance days. Glenn Close is equally slumming it again in a weird role, even for her. Cath is an unlikeable character whose motivations waver through the film and make little sense in the end. Close also wears gloves throughout her entire performance, which is completely inexplicable. There is also a bizarre cameo from Marisa Tomei as a woman who lives with an orangutan named Samuel. The primate, who gets a prominent place in the Brothers trailer, maybe the strangest part of this movie and could be a low point in Josh Brolin’s career. The trailer does a good job of teasing what takes place in that particular scene, but the reason for its inclusion remains a mystery to me since it does not seem to serve the plot and is not that funny.
Part of me hoped that Brothers would be the next best thing to a Twins sequel, but it only works because the lead characters have a believable sibling relationship. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito, Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage do not outwardly look like they are related. Still, the Brothers duo both have striking jawlines and substantial onscreen presence. Dinklage is the funnier of the two here, with Brolin mostly playing it straight, but it is still an unusually comic turn for the No Country for Old Men and Avengers star. Both actors are in their mid-fifties, which makes these characters feel about twenty years out of their league. However, after seeing Brolin’s recent hosting stint on Saturday Night Live, it is apparent that he has the chops for fare like this. It takes a solid half of the film before Brolin finds his footing as Moke, but just as the brothers find some rhythm, the film throws in a weird golf cart chase that is straight out of a Farrelly Brothers movie.
Directed by Mark Barbakow, who made an impressive debut with the Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg time travel movie Palm Springs, Brothers is inconsistent in tone, style, pacing, and everything else. Brothers reunite Peter Dinklage with Macon Blair, the writer-director of the as-yet-unreleased remake of The Toxic Avenger. Blair has appeared on screen for directors ranging from Christopher Nolan to Steven Soderbergh and Jeremy Saulnier. He has written solid films like I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore and Hold the Dark but is out of his league with Brothers. Based on a story by Tropic Thunder‘s Etan Cohen, Brothers thinks that seeing career criminals getting tossed around and punched is the height of comedy while still trying to deliver an emotionally resonant family story. The film misses on all fronts.
While Peter Dinklage and Josh Brolin try their very best to save this movie, there is not enough chemistry to salvage Brothers. After sitting on the shelf for three years, it is no wonder this movie is being dumped on streaming despite a solid trailer promising a fun time. Brothers is decidedly not fun and is immediately forgettable. If it succeeds at anything, it proves that while some actors are a natural fit for comedy roles, the script is ultimately more important than whether the talent can be funny. Also, animal masturbation is creepier than it is funny.
Brothers is now streaming on Prime Video.
