Despite strong performances from the leads, when it comes to pacing and power, it’s the Danish original that edges it. Still, a sturdy and affecting remake that brings a powerful story to an even wider audience.

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Brothers (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:130
Fresh:76
Rotten:54
Average Rating:6/10
Consensus: It plays more like a traditional melodrama than the Susanne Bier film that inspired it, but Jim Sheridan's Brothers benefits from rock-solid performances by its three leads.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for language and some disturbing violent content.
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Dec 4, 2009 Wide
Box Office: $28,501,651
Synopsis:
When a decorated Marine goes missing overseas, his black-sheep younger brother cares for his wife and children at home—with consequences that will shake the foundation of the entire family.
...
When a decorated Marine goes missing overseas, his black-sheep younger brother cares for his wife and children at home—with consequences that will shake the foundation of the entire family.
BROTHERS tells the powerful story of two siblings, thirtysomething Captain Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) and younger brother Tommy Cahill (Jake Gyllenhaal), who are polar opposites. A Marine about to embark on his fourth tour of duty, Sam is a steadfast family man married to his high school sweetheart, the aptly named Grace (Natalie Portman), with whom he has two young daughters (Bailee Madison, Taylor Grace Geare). Tommy, his charismatic younger brother, is a drifter just out of jail who’s always gotten by on wit and charm. He slides easily into his role as family provocateur on his first night out of prison, at Sam’s farewell dinner with their parents, Elsie (Mare Winningham) and Hank Cahill (Sam Shepard), a retired Marine.
Shipped out to Afghanistan, Sam is presumed dead when his Black Hawk helicopter is shot down in the mountains. At home in suburbia, the Cahill family suddenly faces a shocking void, and Tommy tries to fill in for his brother by assuming newfound responsibility for himself, Grace, and the children.
But Sam is not dead; he and a fellow soldier have been captured by Taliban fighters. In Afghanistan’s harsh, remote Pamir Mountains, Sam is subjected to traumas that threaten to rob him of his very humanity. At the same time that Sam’s sense of self is being destroyed overseas, Tommy’s self-image is strengthening at home. And in the grief and strangeness of their new lives, Grace and Tommy are naturally drawn together. Their longstanding frostiness dissolves, but both are frightened and ashamed of the mutual attraction that has replaced it.
When Sam unexpectedly returns to the States, a nervous mood settles over the family. Sam, uncharacteristically withdrawn and volatile, grows suspicious of his brother and his wife. Their familiar roles now nearly reversed, Sam and Tommy end up facing the ultimate physical and mental challenge when they confront each other. In the shifting family dynamics, who will dominate? And how will the brothers come to terms with issues of love, loyalty, and manhood—and with the woman caught between them?
Lionsgate and Relativity Media proudly present the riveting family drama BROTHERS, directed by six-time Oscar® nominee Jim Sheridan (IN AMERICA, IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER), from a screenplay by David Benioff (THE KITE RUNNER, STAY, TROY), and starring Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sam Shepard, Mare Winningham, Bailee Madison, and Taylor Grace Geare. The producers are Ryan Kavanaugh, Joni Sighvatsson, and Michael De Luca. Executive producers are Tucker Tooley and Zach Schiff-Abrams, with co-executive producer Jeremiah Samuels. BROTHERS is based on the Danish film BRØDRE by Susanne Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen.
Sheridan’s prior films have garnered 16 Academy Award® nominations and won two Academy Awards, for lead actors Daniel Day Lewis and Brenda Fricker in MY LEFT FOOT: THE STORY OF CHRISTY BROWN. Sheridan has personally been nominated six times, for writing the screenplay of IN AMERICA; for writing, directing, and producing the best-picture nominee IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER; and for writing and directing MY LEFT FOOT. --© Lionsgate
Starring: Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Bailee Madison
Starring: Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Bailee Madison, Taylor Geare, Patrick Flueger, Sam Shepard, Mare Winningham, Clifton Collins, Josh Berry
Director: Jim Sheridan
Director: Jim Sheridan
Screenwriter: David Benioff
Producer: Ryan Kavanaugh, Joni Sighvatsson, Michael De Luca
Composer: Thomas Newman
Studio: Lions Gate Films
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Reviews for Brothers
It takes two-thirds of the film for any scene of real emotional truth or power to emerge – and by then we’re lost.
If you like drama with big showdowns and plenty of heartbreak, there's plenty to enjoy here.
Brothers is a movie of moments (some of which are fine indeed) that never quite coalesce into a credible or satisfying whole.
Like mainstream Hollywood with a weird dollop of painful arthouse drama.
The film feels like a spirit-sapping tour of duty: lightweight stars doing Big Emotions.
While Brothers is raw in its realism and loud in its chest-beating, it’s still mechanically cold to watch.
Far less than the sum of its parts, Brothers fails to reach the heights that the intriguing premise, talented cast and award-winning director could have attained with some tweaking to the script.
Don’t be put off by the “Afghan war” tag – Brothers isn’t half as harrowing as some of the other awards-bait offerings coming our way. This touching family drama deserves to find an audience.
The fine interplay between the three leads builds to a gripping, emotionally devastating finale that offers no easy answers while still arriving at a poignant and satisfying conclusion.
A sudsy remake that soft-soaps its tougher inspiration. The A-list stars go for it, but are 10 years off doing the story justice.
A slightly bland Portman and an overwrought Maguire rather highlight the contrived turns in the plotting of what is a thoroughly respectable effort, but one that is not all it could have been.
Jim Sheridan's plodding direction and the miscasting of Maguire mean that it looks too much like glossy melodrama to involve many people's emotions.
Brothers is a film that fails on almost every level, coming with no meaningful message about the morality of war, saying nothing about sibling relationships and with the worst case of miscasting I can recall.
The result, wavering between intensity and bombast, is part Eugene O’Neill, part topical TV movie.
Maguire and Gyllenhaal give honest performances, though they don't really convince as blood. Carey Mulligan, our own current darling, makes a brief but telling appearance as a war widow.
A welcome reminder of just how fine an actor Gyllenhaal can be and one of the reasons to catch this understated tale of a family at war.
As rowdy, democratic and open-ended as a Robert Altman saga, Brothers breathes life into the clichés surrounding traumatised vets.
A watchable, well made drama with a superb performance from Jake Gyllenhaal but it lacks both the subtlety and the emotional impact of the Danish original.
This remake of Susanne Bier's 2004 drama is an equally powerful story of family tensions and how violence affects more than just the victim. But the original Danish film's strained melodrama translates here as well.
Latest News for Brothers
December 04, 2009:
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Happy Friday Harvest, a weekly round-up of the best pictures, posters, and videos that have become available for viewing/download on Rotten Tomatoes. Each section features the... More...
December 03, 2009:
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This week at the movies, we've got a fractured family (Everybody's Fine, starring Robert De Niro and Drew Barrymore); a sibling rivalry (Brothers, starring Natalie Portman and... More...
December 01, 2009:
Total Recall: Natalie Portman's Best Movies
Child actors are notorious for fizzling out once their prepubescent charms disappear during adolescence, or once they discover the various vices of the adult world, and it seems... More...
November 29, 2009:
Tobey Maguire Talks Brothers, Spider-Man 4 ![]()
Tobey Maguire has kept a pretty low profile since "Spider-Man 3" swung into theaters in 2007, but with "Brothers" just around the corner -- and, of course, "Spider-Man 4" on the... More...
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