Four Brothers (2005) February 2, 2007
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , trackbackDirected by: John Singleton
A simple story of family revenge, this Mark Wahlberg-starring flick came out to mixed reviews last year. Like many films of the genre, the set-up is nice and straightforward: Four adopted tearaways return to Detroit after their adoptive mother is murdered during a grocery story robbery. The Mercer brothers, as they are known, decide that the only way to deal with it is to get even. So the mismatch family work together to track down the killers. Cue violence.
Now the cast certainly causes no harm to the picture, each fitting their roles well, even if those roles are slightly stereotypical: the hothead leader, the ‘kid’, the settled-down one etc. Mark Wahlberg unleashes the inner thug without much problem, while musician-come-actor André Benjamin (of Black Eyed Peas fame) shows that he’s got what it takes to work in film, his roles both here and in Be Cool setting him apart from past singer-to-actor failures.
The film is competently directed by John Singleton, if nothing that’s going to set the world on fire. The same goes for the writing actually, although apparently a lot of the lines were improvised on-set, which might explain the lack of decent dialogue. Some plot twists are quite predictable, though I thought they were handled well, and even though the story is a simple one there is plenty going on throughout to keep you interested.
If fault lies anywhere it’s in the choice of characters. As criminals and thugs they certainly aren’t your traditional heroes, and while the story tries to show them in a good light, I was never convinced that their more violent actions were entirely warranted. It’s good to see that they care about family so much, but there’s a point in the film when they make the jump from threat, to force, and you start to wonder whether their saintly mother would really have wanted any of this.
While sometimes playing things a little too by-the-numbers, but never enough to completely turn you off, the result is neither great nor terrible. It’s just very average – a word I could’ve used to describe almost every aspect of this film. Worth a look if you’re into this kind of thing, or want to take a break for a couple of hours. You won’t get much out of it, but you can at least enjoy it while it lasts.
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