Brothers Review

In the second film from Palm Springs director Max Barbakow, it’s easy to imagine how Brothers might have been pitched as a modern counterpart to Ivan Reitman’s Twins, complete with an unlikely central pairing. At its best though, Barbakow’s film more closely resembles Midnight Run, blending cynical comedy with moments of genuine pathos.

The film follows brothers Moke (Josh Brolin) and Jady Munger (Peter Dinklage), whose relationship is strained by their tumultuous past. Abandoned by their bank-robber mother, the two fall into a life of petty crime—something Jady embraces, but which Moke wants to escape. His chance comes during a robbery when Jady is arrested, allowing Moke to evade capture. Five years later, Moke has found love and built a respectable life for himself, a life that is upended when his brother is released early. Now under the thumb of a corrupt guard (Brendan Fraser), the brothers are forced to team up for one final heist: locating the proceeds from their mother’s last big score.

Brolin and Dinklage might seem a strange pick for comedy leads, but they both deliver well-judged performances and have an easy chemistry together. Both are adept at comedy and recognize that underplaying is so much funnier than going over the top, and both find the pathos in their characters. Dinklage’s smooth-talking petty criminal is familiar territory for him, but he’s still very funny, with a world-weary voiceover that evokes Robert Downey Jr.’s in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Brolin is more of a revelation, although given his eclectic filmography over the past few years it really shouldn’t be that surprising. Playing the gentle, slightly simple-minded criminal savant who can crack any safe and yet wants to go straight, Brolin is a perfect foil for Dinklage, and the constant, childish bickering between the two is one of the highlights of the film, well, along with the facial expressions on Brolin’s face when approached by an amorous orangutan.

Barbakow has managed to attract an admirable pedigree of actors to what is at its core a pretty lightweight film. Everyone understands the assignment perfectly, from Marisa Tomei as Jady’s bonkers pen pal to M Emmett Walsh (in his final film role) as a gleefully corrupt judge. Glenn Close has a ball playing against type as the brothers’ unapologetically callous, unsentimental mother, and she proves crucial to many of the film’s most effective rug-pulls. Brendan Fraser, continuing his resurgence as a reliable character actor following roles in Killers of the Flower Moon and No Sudden Move, is terrific as the bumbling antagonist. His role is reminiscent of John Ashton’s Marvin from Midnight Run—he’s technically the villain, but he’s so hapless that you can’t help but feel for him.

The screenplay by Macon Blair is written with a mixture of wit and profanity that makes you yearn for his Toxic Avenger reboot that will likely never see the light of day. Early on we meet one character who we are told “drowned when his d*** got stuck in a pool drain” telling us everything we need to know about him in a concise, filthy way. The characters stumble from one absurd situation to the next, with slapstick and gross-out humour that consistently wrongfoots the audience. There’s one fake-out in particular that occurs during a high-stakes, slow-speed Mad Max-style car chase involving golf carts and a JCB, that had me cackling like a madman.

Brothers might not hit the heights of recent comedies like Game Night, Bottoms, or Good Boys, but to its credit, it never tries to reinvent the wheel. It’s a simple comedy, tightly structured, with memorable performances from its leads, and really, what more can you ask for? Often crude, occasionally heartfelt, and consistently very funny, Brothers is a refreshingly old-fashioned caper, and at a tight 90 minutes, it never outstays its welcome.