ONE HOPES there•s a way to pan a movie while simultaneously honoring the troops, but seeing the dud Brothers on the day that Obama announced the surge just added to the numb horror of the day. Jim Sheridan•s remake of Suzanne Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen•s 2004 Danish original is shot in wintery New Mexico (which is doubling for Minnesota); the scenes in Afghanistan match the frozen fields there, so the film is all one icy plain filled with familial pain.
Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) is just out of the joint after three years for bank robbery; his brother, Sam (Tobey Maguire), is a captain in the Marines about to head back for another stint overseas. Grace (Natalie Portman), Sam•s wife, and the mother of his two children, settles down to wait for his return. But Sam•s helicopter is shot down by the Taliban, and he•s taken prisoner and brutalized. Meanwhile, back in the States, black sheep Tommy becomes better friends with Grace than his brother would like.
Portman is gorgeous as always but far out of her depth as an actress here. David Benioff•s script owes something to the original but probably more to The Deer Hunter. (Not to spoil the revelation of the atrocity, but these foreigners never seem to realize it•s a bad idea to arm a prisoner of war.) It•s up to Maguire to animate the role of the soldier. In post-traumatic-stress mode (as seen in the trailers) wielding a gun and screaming to the heavens, he•s showboating with all smokestacks belching.
Brothers won•t make the troops feel better, and it won•t do the homefront much good either; it•s hoped that the acting will be convincing enough to touch some nerve about the endless war. It would take a more delicate touch than this movie has to get the desired reaction. As for authenticity, Portman and Maguire look like a pair of Priuses parked outside a honky-tonk. Certainly Gyllenhaal is touching, but beside him there•s not much relief from Mare Winningham and Sam Shepard as the brothers• stepmother and violent father, respectively. Sheridan•s deftness with the less het-up moments (some expert kid-wrangling, some horsing around amid house painters) demonstrates the film•s only connection with the real.
BROTHERS (R; 105 min.), directed by Jim Sheridan, written by David Benioff, photographed by Frederick Elmes and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and Tobey Maguire, plays valleywide. (For more reviews and showtimes, see Movietimes.com)
