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Sir Critic on Cinema
Three movies reviewed
Movie night? Read up on "The House Bunny," "Man on Wire," and "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."
'Four Brothers': John Wayne meets Motor City
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rough-and-tumble and sometimes raucously funny, "Four Brothers" can't decide if it wants to be a bloody revenge movie or a heartwarming family piece, so it settles on being a bit of both and the heck with smooth transitions.
However, John Singleton's film crackles with so much energy and confident acting, it doesn't really matter.
Paramount Pictures
B The verdict: Fast, funny and often furious, this is what mindless escapism should be. Director: John Singleton On the web |
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"Four Brothers" is an urban riff on an old John Wayne Western, "The Sons of Katie Elder," about four brothers seeking to avenge their mother's death. Instead of the wide open prairie, the action (which is considerable) takes place on the wintry streets of inner-city Detroit. And the greedy landowner is now a flamboyant mobster (Chiwetel Ejiofor from "Dirty Pretty Things" and "Love Actually").
When Evelyn Mercer (a twinkly-eyed Fionnula Flanagan) is killed in what seems to be a random grocery-store robbery, her four adopted sons, who haven't seen each other in a long time, show up for her funeral. Cleverly, they're introduced by the policeman who's staking out the funeral, Lt. Green (Terrence Howard). Green grew up with them and can give his partner, Fowler (Josh Charles), a quick rundown of the quartet, each seemingly more disreputable than the next.
Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), the oldest, is an ex-con with a lot of attitude. Angel (Tyrese Gibson) is a ladies man who's also good with a gun. Jeremiah (Andre Benjamin) is a family man and the most responsible of the group. And Jack (Garrett Hedlund) is the still-teased youngest who wants to be a rock star. Believe me, Green says to his partner, thanks to their foster mom, "They're veritable congressmen compared to how they might've turned out."
When the police investigation predictably stalls, Bobby decides their mother's death may not be so random after all. The deeper they dig, the righter he seems — and the heavier the artillery gets.
Singleton stages a great car chase that slip-slides along a deserted Detroit street in the middle of a snowstorm. And a final reckoning on a frozen lake echoes "Fargo" — but with loads and loads of guns.
Yet the best bits are the ones without blood squibs and gunfire. The interplay between the brothers is especially appealing. They know each other too well and not well enough, meaning trust is a sometime thing with the Mercer boys. Still, they're bound together by their love for Evelyn (who occasionally turns up, ghost like, to remind them of their better natures).
The actors pass their dialogue back and forth as if they were all-stars dribbling down a basketball court. They have a looseness with each other, an ease, that pulls the movie together, even at its most disjointed.
All four are wonderful, but Wahlberg and Benjamin (aka Andre 3000) are stand-outs. The erstwhile Marky Mark is completely in the moment, as effective as a bad guy as he is as a funny guy and often mixing the two effortlessly. Benjamin's snappy performance couldn't save the dismal "Be Cool," but here he shows he has the charisma and acting chops to pursue a career in movies. There's also good work by Howard, who couldn't be more different than he is in the current "Hustle & Flow," and Ejiofor has great fun as a gangland boss who humiliates an underling by making him eat off the floor like a dog.
Singleton still hasn't topped his debut movie, "Boyz n the Hood," which earned him an Oscar nomination. But "Four Brothers" has something of the same brio and fondness for character and dialogue. And in a summer of big-budget dim-witted duds, it's just what escapist entertainment should be.
