If you’re anything like me, when you saw the title for Max Barbakow’s new comedy “Brothers,” you thought, “Finally! A movie about brothers!”
I kid, I kid. But it’s not like there’s ever been any shortage of films about fraternal love and/or hatred: “Step Brothers,” “The Blues Brothers,” “The Sisters Brothers,” “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” “East of Eden,” “Fred Claus.” You know, the giants. Max Barbakow’s first feature, the hilarious “Palm Springs,” injected new vitality into the rom-com genre and the time loop drama at the same time. Could he also make a formulaic buddy comedy about two criminal siblings on a road trip seem special?
The answer is … a little, but let’s not go nuts. That, apparently, was the job of Barbakow’s cast. But we’ll get to that. First we have to introduce you to Peter Dinklage and Josh Brolin as twin brothers Jady and Moke, who hail from a long familial line of felons. One time they even got arrested for “goonery,” which makes them sound like a supervillain’s henchmen in an old “Batman” episode. (Which admittedly they would have been perfect for.)
They’re twins, but they’re very different people: Jady is a confident and conniving idea man. Moke is a sensitive and skillful safecracker. Jady is a high energy fast-talker. Moke is a depressive sourpuss. Jady has a mustache that looks like a ferret ran into an industrial accident on his face. Moke doesn’t.
When a heist goes sour, Jady spends five years in prison and Moke gives up a life of crime, takes an easygoing fast food job and marries a charmingly normal woman named Abby (Taylour Paige, “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F”), whose parents don’t like him. Moke and Abby are in the middle of their baby shower when Jady shows up, free from prison, with a job proposal.
Jady didn’t get out of jail the old-fashioned way. His sentence was commuted by a corrupt judge (the late M. Emmet Walsh, in his final role) on the condition that Jady return with millions of dollars in stolen emeralds that their mother purloined when they were children. Hot on Jady and Moke’s heels is the judge’s corrupt cop son Farful (Brendan Fraser), and somewhere in their future lies their fugitive mother Cath (Glenn Close).
Along the way, Jady tries to reconnect with his estranged sibling while also conning him back into a life of crime. They also find themselves in old-fashioned wacky road trip shenanigans like boozing, karaoke and [checks notes] sexually aggressive baboons. Which is about as funny as it sounds.
The screenplay for “Brothers” stems from a story by Etan Cohen, who directed the abysmal buddy comedies “Get Hard” and “Holmes & Watson,” and Macon Blair, who wrote the acclaimed crime films “I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore” and “Hold Back the Dark.” And boy, does it feel like it. “Brothers” takes a tediously familiar comedy story structure and hangs some genuinely interesting characters and performances on it. It’s like a Frankenstein monster made out of “Raising Arizona” and “Dumb and Dumber To.”
When it works — and it frequently does — it’s because the cast has been completely turned loose. Dinklage loves playing a lout, in case you hadn’t noticed, and Brolin loves playing an awkward weirdo. Close loves playing a crappy mom who loves crime slightly more than her own kids. And Fraser … wow, Fraser is something else in this movie. He goes for total intimidation and total silliness simultaneously, which isn’t advisable, but he does it anyway. Watching him in “Brothers” is like watching someone play Buford T. Justice and his hapless son Junior at the same time and almost getting away with it. I’m not sure if his performance is “good” by any rational standard but it’s hard to take your eyes off of him, that’s for sure.
That pushmi-pullyu mentality infects pretty much all of Barbakow’s comedy. The film was made with two very specific audiences in mind: People who love hacky buddy comedies and people who hate hacky buddy comedies. To everyone in the middle, just good luck. It’s kinda funny, kinda not. It’s kinda clever, kinda not. But there’s a surprisingly good chase scene between a bunch of golf carts and a bulldozer that comes from out of nowhere, and that inspired bit of silliness bridges the gap quite nicely.
In the end your mileage with “Brothers” will depend on whether you’re invested in Jady and Moke, and Dinklage and Brolin are too talented to completely lose you, even if the rest of the movie sometimes does. They bring genuine love to a film that’s too contrived to feel genuine, and too scattershot to be lovable. They’re good characters in search of a better life and, by extension, a better film. They have to settle for this one, so I guess the rest of us can, too.
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