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Amazon Prime has lately shown a penchant for the kind of wacky action comedies studios aren’t flooding theatres with as they used to do. With films by Peter Farrelly, Paul Feig, and others the genre is alive and well in Culver City, and their acquisition of director Max Barbakow‘s (Palm Springs) sophomore feature, Brothers not only fits right into the mold but manages to be a wildly entertaining example of how to do it.
What also makes this all work as well as it does is an exceptionally well-chosen cast of A-list actors working against type. What more do I have to say except that Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage are playing fraternal twins and Glenn Close is their conniving grifter mother! Throw in a X-rated love scene with a CGI Orangutan and you have the recipe for madness which Brothers delivers in the best slapstick style.
As we learn in flashbacks, fraternal twins Jady (Dinklage) and younger brother Moke (Brolin) were rambunctious in their younger years, getting in trouble for robberies and other mischief with Jady winding up doing prison time, while Moke decided to go straight and put that life behind him, marrying Abby (Taylour Paige) and becoming a family man. When Jady gets sprung from prison he comes back into bro’s life with an enticing proposition of one last job, the retrieval of $4 million in jewels buried away by their equally problematic mother, Cath Munger (Close) who pulled the heist as a young woman 30 years earlier and basically disappeared from Jady and Moke’s life for three decades. Now she comes back into the picture promising equal riches for all in leading the boys to this buried treasure, and a crazy road trip ensues with an unhinged Jady and a very reluctant but intense Moke, the kind perhaps inspired like so many other films in its wake by Midnight Run where a mismatched pair finds all kinds of trouble stuck together. In its own whacked out way this is a movie about family. I kid you not.
On their trail is a bumbling but determined bad guy, Farful, a whale of a role Brendan Fraser plays to the hilt as he made a deal to spring Jady from prison in return for a piece of the action, but actually has plans to collect it all himself. This was made possible by his crooked judge father (M. Emmet Walsh in his final role). This movie is Mad Mad Mad Mad World on steroids. It also isn’t afraid to go completely bonkers in places, especially for a booty call insisted upon by Jady who visits a pen pal from his prison days, the animal loving Bethesda (Marisa Tomei). While they are in the bedroom for their unique brand of lovemaking, Moke is left alone on the living room couch when he is approached by an Orangutan, like no other screen monkey (!) Turns out Samuel (played in motion capture by Devyn Dalton who has done similar CGI work in the Planet Of The Ape films) is quite horny and relies on a freaked-out Moke to pleasure him. This scene is LOL hilarious, a screwball comic diversion in a movie that just throws it all against the wall.
With big set pieces including a wild golf cart chase, and lots of explosions in a Mall scene towards the end, Barbakow fulfills the promise of his acclaimed Palm Springs, suffering no sophomore curse here, but instead proving to be adept at delivering an action comedy (blissfully in just under a tight 90 minutes) without sacrificing the film’s human characters who somehow manage to remain three dimensional in spite of all the hijinks they endure. The screenplay is by Macon Blain with story by Etan Cohen. It is nice to see both Brolin and Dinklage try on different personas here and go for broke. Both prove to be adept at comedy without completely going over the top. For Close, an 8-time Oscar nominee, she looks like she is having a blast playing the not-to-be-trusted duplicitous matriarch who will never win Mother Of The Year honors. Fraser, long known for his comic chops before winning a Best Actor Oscar in more serious mode, delivers again on this front and it looks like he also isn’t afraid to try anything. Paige nicely anchors her scenes as the one clearly sane character in this circus.
Producers of the Legendary Pictures Production are Brolin, Dinklage, Andrew Lazar, and David Ginsberg.
Title: Brothers
Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios
Release Date: Now steaming on Amazon Prime
Director: Max Barbakow
Screenplay: Macon Blain. Story by Etan Cohen
Cast: Josh Brolin, Peter Dinklage, Taylour Paige, M. Emmet Walsh, Jennifer Landon, Brendan Fraser, Marisa Tomei, Devyn Dalton, Glenn Close
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour and 29 minutes
