Taut, realistic 'Brothers' explores real cost of war
There's not a single false emotional note in Jim Sheridan's lean and spare war drama "Brothers."
The performances of the entire cast - especially Tobey Maguire and the girls who play his two children - are tight and contained.
That is, until they explode. When they do, their outbursts are not Hollywood showboating, but organic expressions of pain and frustration forcefully escaping from emotional pressure cookers.
"Brothers" is an English remake of Susanne Bier's 2005 Danish war drama, but to American baby boomers, it will probably recall the Vietnam War drama "Coming Home," starring Jon Voight and Jane Fonda in a familiar story of a left-behind soldier's wife falling for another military man when her husband leaves, first physically, then emotionally.
Sheridan's movie packs none of the heavy-handed, anti-war preachiness of "Coming Home." Actually, "Brothers" isn't even about the war in Afghanistan per se.
But it does deal directly with the real costs of war. Not the easy-to-count monetary costs of bullets and vehicles, but the intangible costs of broken families, lost loved ones and psychological damage to returning soldiers.
"Brothers" stars erstwhile Spider-Man Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal as convincing siblings on opposite sides of the spectrum.
Maguire's Sam Cahill grew up a model son. Responsible. Good grades. Married his high school sweetheart. Joined the Marines. Pride of his Vietnam War vet dad (Sam Shepard).
Jake Gyllenhaal's Tommy Cahill, a directionless black sheep, gets out of the hoosegow on an armed robbery conviction just as Sam is about to depart for his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Sam's helicopter gets shot down over Taliban territory and he's declared dead, leaving behind a beautiful wife Grace (Natalie Portman in a workable but depthless performance) and two adorable daughters, Isabelle (Bailee Madison) and Maggie (Taylor Geare).
But we all know the Hollywood movie law: If someone "dies" in a film but we never see the actual corpse, he/she will pop up later in the story.
Sam pops up right away, because his "death" isn't a typical cheap red herring.
He and a fellow soldier, Private Joe Willis (Patrick Flueger), have been taken prisoner by the Taliban, and subjected to horrendous abuse when they refuse to denounce American policy on a handicam.
Back home in New Mexico, Grace feels nothing but disgust for slouchy Tommy. But he slowly comes to appreciate Grace and her family, and evolves into a responsible father figure for his nieces. Grace begins to like him.
U.S. forces eventually find and rescue Sam, but not before a traumatic experience has reduced him to a ticking time bomb of corrosive guilt.
When Sam returns home, he resembles the burr-cut Marine who left, but he is not the same man, something his daughters pick up quickly.
"Brothers" comes with many opportunities to disintegrate into a sink hole of sentiment and cloying clichés.
But under Sheridan, director of "In America" and "My Left Foot," "Brothers" achieves a potent spontaneity that renders its volcanic eruptions every bit as sincere and realistic as the story's smaller, well-constructed moments.
Sheridan elicits poignant, unaffected performances from young Madison and Geare, while guiding Maguire's over-the-top flashfires into Shakespearean-level implosions rather than a cartoon version of Travis Bickle from "Taxi Driver."
Gyllenhaal's Tommy skates through the film on plenty of loose charm, and makes a convincing brother for Sam.
Screenwriter David Benioff's script includes a dunderheaded beginning that sets up "Brothers" as a series of first-person diary entries, a gimmick that Sheridan wisely drops, then unwisely resurrects at the end.
"Brothers"
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sam Shepard, Mare Winningham
Directed by: Jim Sheridan
Other: A Lionsgate release. Rated R for language, violence. 110 minutes