REVIEW: Brothers (2009)

Brothers

Rated: R

Starring: Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire

Runtime: 105 minutes

My rating: 4 stars

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A simple story at its core, Brothers showcases the acting talents of three young stars to make it one of the better films this year.

It's slow to start, builds with tension and finishes with fireworks that will leave you in stunned silence while the credits roll. For me, it is the first film of the year I can honestly say has Oscar-worthy performances.

Perhaps I'm not the best judge of an actor's skill since no one is getting Oscar buzz for Brothers. That said, Tobey Maguire gives the best performance of his career.

He plays Capt. Sam Cahill, who leaves his wife, Grace (Natalie Portman), and two young children to fight in Afghanistan. His brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), gets out of prison just two days before Sam leaves.

Tommy is the screw-up of the military family. Their father (Sam Shepard) fought in the Vietnam War and convinced Sam to join the Marines. Tommy chose a life of crime instead.

On one of Sam's first missions in Afghanistan, his helicopter is shot down. A search effort yielded no results and he is presumed dead. He was really captured by anti-American Afghani terrorists.

Tommy, meanwhile, tries to sort out his life by checking in on and taking care of the family back home. In turn, a mutual affection develops between Tommy and Grace.

The build-up to the resolution is of course predictable. Same finds his way back home and has to battle with the horrors of his imprisonment and his paranoia about Tommy and Grace.

What makes Maguires performance so remarkable is his complete transformation from a controlled Marine to a man just trying to hold his life together.

His humor is lost when he returns, his love of life has vanished and the guilt of his actions in Afghanistan tear about his soul. He is sensational relaying all of it.

The film itself is also quite good if you can get past the opening act, which laboriously plods along. It's tedious and unnecessary, especially considering every one in the audience knows exactly what and when the conflict will happen. What's the need to drag it out?

Above all else, Brothers is about love and life. At a family dinner scene early in the film, the father says “Every family has its problems.” Few are more dramatic than the Cahill family. But, importantly, it's believable.

I don't know any soldiers, and I have no idea what it is like to fight in a war, but I believed what I saw on screen during Brothers. That is a testament to the acting.

The cast did its best at capturing the emotions behind a clichéd war-drama. It's predictable yet doesn't take away from the impact of the film. Watch it, enjoy it, and marvel at Maguire. Four stars.