Brothers








Director - Jim Sheridan

Genre - Drama/Thriller/War


As a character study on the effects of war towards soldiers, this is quite an eye-opener. Expected to leave everything at the drop of a hat, a soldier's life is treated as belonging to the country and not his own. What we fail to acknowledge though is that they have family too. There are fathers, husbands, wives and mothers in the army. Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal play siblings who are as different as night and day. Maguire is the disciplined marine who is also a responsible father and husband. Gyllenhaal stars as the bad seed who can never do anything right and has just been released from prison. However, after a terrible mistake and setback occurred to Maguire, everything changes. Maguire carried himself like a seasoned pro here, embodying the mental hurt inflicted on him in war with such intensity it actually pained us as well to look at him. Natalie Portman who starred as his wife and Gyllenhaal provided the necessary back and forth but Maguire's role was the heart of the story.

3.5 STARS!

All about Brothers

Comments

very much a character story. i enjoyed this movie. a lot. for tobey maguire alone.
Yes in this picture Tobey really showed us that his acting has matured and if given challenging roles, he can rise up to the stage.

Thank you for your comment Candice.
Sweet Lily said…
Nice post!
Vigorously nodding my head in agreement!
Unknown said…
I didn't much care for this movie, but I did really like Maguire's performance. He did a fantastic job with it.
Tame Lion - Thank you very much for your support.

Real People - Yes. Maguire's performance made all the difference. Thank you for your comment.
Andrew K. said…
Glad to see someone remembering this, I felt this film was sorely underrated back in 09. I think all the three leads do fine work, especially Maguire as you say. It's not my favourite Portman performance, but I was really impressed with how mature she seemed.
Yeah we agree all three did well. Maguire had the meatiest part though and he made us look at him in a very different way after this. No trace of Peter Parker here!