Jim Sheridan reworks Danish director Susanne Bier’s Brodre in this timely story of a U.S. Marine captain (Tobey Maguire) who, once thought killed in Afghanistan, returns home to discover his black-sheep brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) has grown close to his wife (Natalie Portman) and two daughters.
Sheridan, an Irish director who made his name with a series films starring Daniel Day Lewis (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, The Boxer), gets dedicated, affecting performances from his cast — though Maguire’s transformation from well-adjusted family guy to disturbed, post-deployment soldier borders on artifice. But Brothers’ frequent narrative shifts from war-torn Afghanistan to the U.S. home-front come off less convincing, yielding a well-meaning but tonally disjointed look at the emotional and psychological toll of war on the battlefield and off. Grade: B-
Opens Dec. 4. Check out theaters and show times, see more photos from the film and get theater details here.
This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2009.