BROTHERS

In one of the previews for director Jim Sheridan's new film, "Brothers", Tobey Maguire's daughter blurts out to him, "You're just mad because mommy would rather sleep with Uncle Tommy than you!" This line might seem very laughable when read, but works well and is very dramatic when said on screen, this is a reason why "Brothers" works as a film.

The plot of the film is that U.S. Marine Capt. Sam Cahill (played marvelously by Magurie) is sent over to Afghanistan, presumed dead, and then his brother Tommy (Jake Gylenhaal) helps Sam's wife (Natalie Portman) and her two daughters cope. Then Sam comes back, and all hell breaks loose. Sam is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder after surviving some brutal torture and does not feel at home in his own town, or anywhere. The torture Sam goes through is very hard for the audience to buy, especially towards the end of his stay as a P.O.W. to al-Qaeda. When he comes back however, Maguire puts on his best performance to date.

Magurie literally puts fear into the heart of the audience, and every scene he is in there is a sense that he is just about to explode. When he does though, it is completely believable. There are no chuckling moments when he goes crazy, it is just an intense, real scene, and surprisingly sad as well. Maguire definitely deserves an Oscar nomination for best actor, he is so scary, sad, easy to relate to, and sympathetic that it is just heartbreaking.

The rest of the movie seems to fall flat though. Portman, who plays Grace (Magurie's wife), is very good, but seems miscast. It is a little hard to believe that a woman as small and petite as Portman can be the mother of two daughters. She pulls it off decently enough though, but her performance is nothing special. Gylenhaal (who plays Maguire's brother) is very believable. He plays the opposite of Maguire, he is not a Marine, but a low level ex-convict who is trying to get his life back on track. When he has to mature and take care of Grace though, he is up to the task and becomes a surprisingly good father-figure for his nieces. Portman's two daughters, Isabelle and Maggie, are both played very well. Bailee Madison, who plays Isabelle, is outstanding and a complete scene stealer. She is so intense and so mature in her role that she can take on anyone in the film. Sam Shepard is also good as Magurie and Gylenhaal's father, a recovering alcoholic.

The thing that really makes "Brothers" not as good as it could be is that everything is revealed. There is also almost no humor at all. In the last half of the film, when Maguire comes back, Portman is trying to figure out what happened to him over there to make him become a shell of his former self. The audience already knows everything, and just gets upset after a while when Maguire keeps refusing to spill his guts to her. There is no mystery at all in the film, it is told so literally that it is almost and insult to the audience. The lack of humor is also hard to take, with such an intense subject matter the film can come off over-bearing at times and seem hard to watch.

The directing is adequate enough, the cinematography is very well done (with some beautiful shots of evergreens in the snow), and the editing can use some work. The film is too long, mostly because the audience already knows everything, and would have worked better if it was unknown what happened to Maguire until the end. This would have been a more satisfying ending than the one in the film. Not enough actually happens in the ending, after being through this intense hour and 40 minutes, the audience deserves more than what is delivered. There are also too many characters with unfinished stories, including Gylenhaal, Shepard, Isabelle, and Maggie.

The films does work though, very well at times. The acting is tremendous and Maguire has never been better. This film is very intense though, you are sucked into the film, and it never lets you go.

Verdict: WAIT FOR VIDEO

***.5/***** (3.5/5 stars)