Brothers (2009)

It's a little late to the cycle of war-weary movies that hit rather hard back in 2007, but then, the combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, each in its own way, continues. The pivotal concern of Brothers, Jim Sheridan's most recent offering, is the return home of a POW, Capt. Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire), held captive by (presumably) the Taliban in Afghanistan and presumed dead, who finds home a hard transition after months of captivity, torture, and a gut-wrenching decision he has to make for his own survival.

Capt. Cahill is the golden boy of a Marine family whose father, Sgt. Hank (Sam Shepard), is a hard-drinking Vietnam vet. Capt. Sam married his high school sweetheart, Grace (Natalie Portman), with whom he has two daughters. He also has a black-sheep brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), who gets out of jail right before the captain heads to Afghanistan to meet his harsh fate. We learn in these few short days that, not surprisingly, Tommy is a huge disappointment to his dad, and vice versa. But Sam and Tommy are still close, in spite of their contrasting paths, and Tommy undertakes to help Mrs. Cahill and the kids out while Sam is deployed.

Those of us from the Vietnam War generation will recognize certain elements of this in common with that war's version of the returning vet drama, Coming Home. This is a different war, of course, but the horrors of war are much the same always, and what happens to Sam while his family tries to adjust to the news of his death presents the first half of this drama.

The second half is, of course, the surprising news that Sam's alive, and his return home—only as a fragment of his former self.

Brothers has all the makings of a solid wartime drama, but it never quite comes together the way I hoped it would. It's the rare movie when Jake Gyllenhaal doesn't make a strong impression, and this one is it; his role as the black sheep never quite gives him the range to develop the character as he's certainly capable of doing. His scenes with the children should carry a poignant power, but they come off as maudlin moments of aw-shucks excess. Portman just isn't given much room to do more than what's expected, which again is a real surprise; she's more than capable of showing the complexities of Grace's emotional rollercoaster ride, but plays it pretty straight. It's Maguire who really comes through here—yet again, to my surprise. He gives the wounded Sam a scary, disjointed edge that accounts for nearly all the dramatic tension throughout this film. It's a strong, assured performance, one that trades beautifully on his boyish good looks to show a remarkable depth.

Part of the problem is David Benioff's script that never really delivers when it needs to and falters at the worst possible time. Unfortunately, Benioff chose to put a critical revelation in the lines of one of the Cahills' daughters, and it is utterly unconvincing as a child's emotional eruption. Also surprising is the somewhat flat direction from Sheridan, a director who's made riveting drama in the past (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father). He rises to the occasion at the film's climax, in which Maguire's moments shine, but the film's denouement really falters.

Another part of the problem is that this remake suffers by comparison to its Danish original (Brødre, 2004), which was far more nuanced and engaging, even in subtitles.

Brothers is by no means a bad movie. It's worth seeing, and I daresay it won't disappoint most lovers of good film drama. But it disappointed me. With that cast and the talent behind the camera, I think I had every right to expect more. Rather, I'm left wondering what could've been, and mystified that it wasn't to be.