I found Brothers to be surprisingly good. I went into the movie theater not expecting a lot from the film, but I left with a tremendos amount of deep thinking and analyzation. It is definitely one of those common films that shows trailers that are nothing like how the movie and characters are really perceived, but it was definitely one of rare ones that were actually better than what it was going to be through the trailer.
The film is a remake of a 2004 Danish film, Brødre, which seems, if you look at the info about the Danish film, to have stayed very close to the original Danish plot. Without a doubt, Brothers' plot had a significant basis about the current war in Iraq and the conflict in Afghanistan (so much so, that I am still not fully decided if the movie was intended to be pro or anti-war--though, the answer should be obvious), but the war only plays a minor part in the theme, as the title of the movie suggests a great deal about the great underlining theme of the film.
The film starts off with Tobey Maguire's character, Capt. Sam Cahill, picking up his brother, Tommy (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), from prison. Sam is a Marine who is soon to be sent back to Afghanistan for another tour and is very well received by his family and has the bottomless love from his wife, Grace, who is portrayed by Natalie Portman, and his two daughter--not to mention the devote admiration from his father, a Vietnam veteran. tommy is the younger brother who was sent anyway for attempted bank robbery. When young he always felt like the shadow of his older brother, who he felt like received all the love and admiration and is quickly judged upon his release from prison from his father and Grace.
In the building climax of the movie, this all appears to change as it is discovered that Sam may have potentially been killed in combat (he, in fact, was a prisoner of war, being imprisoned and tortured for months). Tommy seems to be the person who steps up and helps fill the void for Grace and his nieces. He has even seems to have slowly gained some respect from his father as well and even having a brief intimate, but nonsexual, moment with Grace. However, all this will quickly change when Sam is rescued and sent home.
Though Sam is brought home, things would never be the same as they once were as he is suffering from his POW torture and, especially, from an event that will possibly forever haunt him, thus, bringing him to an eventual downward spiral and meltdown. The film's underlying theme is has a lot of elements rolled into one as it plays a huge part in sibling rivalry, as the case may be very well seen in Sam and Grace's daughter's. All actors and actresses played their characters very well, I was very impressed with this movie. If I had to give it a out-of-five star rating, I would give it a 4 (mostly because of the ending, which I thought couldn't have ended any better). I definitely recommend for everyone to see this movie, as it is very eye-opening, and you get to see actors play characters you've ever seen them play before
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