Four Brothers Review

The movie starts with a convenience store robbery in Detroit, which leads to the death of the clerk and an elderly lady who happened to be in the store buying milk at the time. This leads her four sons to return home to attend her funeral. All of her sons are adopted ne'er do wells who had had a life of crime and bad habits until they had been rehabilitated by her kind parenting. As they learn about their mom's death, they come to realize it was no accident that she died and set out to right a wrong, even if it means confronting the strongest criminal syndicate in town.

Some may disagree, I think this is the one of the best movies of the fall. I've seen all the big hits (several flops too) and this movie was by far the best of all of them.

It has an excellent cast. All four of the brothers play their parts perfectly, and Singleton directed a compelling character driven, well written story. Mark Wahlberg does well as the tough guy, Andre 3000 (of Outkast fame) does an excellent job as the only brother who made something of himself and Tyrese Gibson and Garrett Hedlund are great as the ex-Marine and failed rock star respectively.

There is lots of action, but not gratuitous let's blow stuff up for the sake of blowing stuff up. Each action scene drives the characters to discover something new in the murder of their mother. There is plenty of humour too, just like in any tight family, everyone has their foibles that are relentlessly dissected and hit upon. The singer, Jack, takes the brunt of the ribbing, but his brothers' love for him comes out in the huge hit 2/3 through the movie.

The characterization is powerful and one of the strongest scenes in the movie is when the four sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, without their mother, and she appears in flashbacks, gently chiding them and/or encouraging them. That, plus there are hockey scenes in the movie. And you can never go wrong with hockey... ;)

9 out of 10