My Brother The Devil (2013)
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Reviews Counted: 39
Fresh: 35 | Rotten: 4
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Critic Reviews: 9
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 2
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 1,718
My Rating
Movie Info
A masterful debut from one of England's boldest and brightest new talents, Sally El Hosaini's MY BROTHER THE DEVIL stars James Floyd as Rashid, a young man from a traditional Arab family who runs with a gang that rules the streets of Hackney, one of London's most ethnically-mixed and historically volatile neighborhoods. Rashid's younger brother, Mo, (Fadi Elsayed) idolizes his handsome, charismatic older brother and dreams of following in his footsteps, but Rashid envisions a different life for
Cast
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Said Taghmaoui
Sayyid -
James Floyd
Rashid -
Fady Elsayed
Mo -
Aymen Hamdouchi
Repo -
Ashley Thomas
Lenny -
Anthony Welsh
Izzi -
Arnold Oceng
AJ -
Letitia Wright
Aisha -
Amira Ghazalla
Hanan -
Elarica Gallacher
Vanessa -
Nasser Memarzia
Abdul-Aziz -
-
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All Critics (39) | Top Critics (9) | Fresh (35) | Rotten (4)
"My Brother the Devil" is a promising debut that marks El Hosaini as a filmmaker to watch, but one still very much in the developmental stages.
Top CriticFor at least part of its length, "My Brother the Devil" brings refreshing changes to a genre badly in need of them.
Nuances of faith, politics and sexual identity enrich what initially presents as a classic good son-bad son tale, and although the film's melting-pot patois is occasionally too dense to decipher, we get the gist.
El Hosaini fights the conventions of the brotherly gangster melodrama, but the conventions win.
It's far superior to what usually comes out of the British slums in the genre of gangland thrillers.
It's to newcomer Sally El Hosaini's credit that she embeds a tangible, lived-in sense of the region's diaspora community and urban criminal underbelly that's leagues away from anthropological fetishizing.
Ultimately feels a little flat, but there's promise that the director will carry on to stronger work, with several scenes here delivering exceptional grace and texture that all but guarantees a bright cinematic future.
Sally El Hosaini shows a deft hand in her story telling and direction belying her inexperience behind the camera.
When a both a dog and friend of Rashid's are killed in a violent gang encounter, El Hosaini frames both of their lifeless bodies on the street in a powerful image that tells of two innocents both bred to fight.
[El Hosaini] has a devil of a time getting a handle on this complicated story.
Familiar youth crime/coming-of-age framework, novel setting and focus group.
El Housani's freshman effort is certainly visually accomplished, but there's precious little meat on its bones.
Highly recommended. (Writer-director) El Hosaini handles the various volatile relationships within the film with intelligence and sensitivity.
An engrossing debut from director Sally El Hosaini, My Brother the Devil is as authentic, emotionally complex and powerfully acted as any film you'll see this year.
Unsure performances and some decades-old gangster-film stereotypes hamper this acute, beautifully shot portrait of Egyptian teenagers fighting to survive in a rough London neighborhood.
With My Brother the Devil, writer-director Sally El Hosaini tells a story both operatic in its implications and quotidian in its sensory, day-to-day details.
It's refreshing to see a new generation reinterpret the classics. James Cagney would be proud.
There probably aren't too many Welsh-Egyptian writer-directors like newcomer Sally El Hosaini. But she's clearly representative of a new kind of diversity in modern Britain. And one which bodes well for its filmmaking future.
As well as touching upon everything from homophobia to terrorism and the merits of bacon, it delivers a heart-touching degree of optimism that's all too rare for this genre.
Audience Reviews for My Brother The Devil
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Sally El Hosaini & James Floyd video interview re: My Brother The Devil | 34 days ago | 0 |
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