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2009-year-end-review-see-all

Review: Brothers

Maguire, Gyllenhaal go deer hunting
By SHAULA CLARK  |  December 9, 2009
3.5 3.5 Stars

 

Operation Enduring Freedom seems to have replaced Vietnam as Hollywood's go-to military quagmire from which to dredge gut-wrenching meditations on the psychological carnage of war. July brought The Hurt Locker, November The Messenger. Now, we have Brothers, Jim Sheridan's remake of Danish director Susanne Bier's 2004 film Brødre, to kick up comparisons with The Deer Hunter.

Having inherited a devotion to the Marines from his 'Nam-vet dad (Sam Shepard), golden boy Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) leaves behind his wife (Natalie Portman) and kids for a fourth tour in Afghanistan, where he's captured and tortured by Taliban fighters. Presuming him dead, the Cahill clan grieves and bonds anew, and Sam's black-sheep ex-con brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), finds a new foothold in life.

But when Sam is rescued and returns home a hollow-eyed, rage-filled shadow of his former self, the family must confront its ghosts. Not content simply to bang the "war is hell" gong, Brothers is an elegant and devastating exploration of identity.

Related: Review: Ninja Assassin, Review: Red Cliff, Review: Up In the Air, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Celebrity News, Entertainment, Entertainment,  More more >
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ARTICLES BY SHAULA CLARK
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   52 WAYS TO LEAVE 2009  |  December 30, 2009
    Your usual lackadaisical approach to New Year's Eve — just see what happens and go with the flow — is not going to cut it this year. Sure, the end of this decade may not have the same kind of new-millennium pressure riding on it as the last one, but the plunge into 2010 is a milestone nonetheless.
  •   REVIEW: BROTHERS  |  December 09, 2009
    Operation Enduring Freedom seems to have replaced Vietnam as Hollywood's go-to military quagmire from which to dredge gut-wrenching meditations on the psychological carnage of war.
  •   REVIEW: THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG  |  December 09, 2009
    Fans of traditional animation will be relieved to learn that 2004's Home on the Range was not the final nail in Disney's 2-D toon coffin.
  •   MAD MEN ON MASS AVE  |  December 09, 2009
    We have many long, painful, Mad Men– less months stretching ahead of us, as we wait for the show to return to AMC and shower us with more broken marriages, snappy quips, jaw-dropping revelations, and (hopefully) amputated limbs.
  •   REVIEW: THE MESSENGER  |  November 17, 2009
    The Iraq War hits suburbia

 See all articles by: SHAULA CLARK

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