Even though Sam and Tommy Cahill are brothers, they are poles apart from each other. Sam is a Marine and Tommy has just served some time in prison. Tommy then has to man up and take responsibility of Sam’s wife and children, as the news about his disappearance in Afghanistan reaches them.
Brothers, the new home-from-the-war film, written by David Benioff and directed by Jim Sheridan, has been made with obvious devotion and sincerity, and I wish I could take it seriously.
Tobey Maguire's jaw seems squarer, his eyes electrified and - as Sam's features harden - like Robert De Niro circa "The Deer Hunter." When Sam snaps - all snarls, snot and spit - Maguire and Jim Sheridan place you in his percussive, throbbing psyche.
After watching this movie, I had what you might call Portman Traumautic Stress Disorder, a condition that leaves you twitchy, irritable, and in need of a well-acted light comedy.
Brothers has painful things on the brain, but it's the intimate moments that hit deepest in a story that shifts between the war in Afghanistan and pent-up family angst back in the good old U.S. of A.
