Brothers: Critic Reviews

Brothers isn't badly acted, but as directed by the increasingly impersonal Jim Sheridan, it's lumbering and heavy-handed, a film that piles on overwrought dramatic twists until it begins to creak under the weight of its presumed significance.

Brothers itself -- a smart, well-meaning project -- never quite pulls itself together.

Like mainstream Hollywood with a weird dollop of painful arthouse drama.

Sheridan is a consistently agile storyteller, drawing strong performances from even the youngest actors.

Is it a movie you'll enjoy? Not enjoy, so much as appreciate. Or maybe recognize.

This is a corny tale, told with both generous helpings of deli-sliced cheese and a brief stretch of chilling tumultuousness.

[Sheridan] aims for Greek tragedy but ends up with a PTSD melodrama.

Brothers tries to delve into how war can tear families apart, but only succeeds in showing how miscasting and melodrama obscure good intentions.

Brothers never fully earns the right to exploit Sam's crucible in Afghanistan and the angry anguish it brings about.

Brothers -- an Americanized re-make of Danish director Susanne Bier's 2004 film "Brodre" -- revolves around the Afghan War but also keeps its distance, a balancing act that winds up looking more wobbly than elegant.

Sheridan pulls you so deep into Brothers so fast that there isn't time for the alarm bell to go off that says: "Warning! Another Traumatized-Vet Movie!" You never catch Sheridan or Benioff grandstanding, only observing.

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.

This becomes Tobey Maguire's film to dominate, and I've never seen these dark depths in him before. Actors possess a great gift to surprise us, if they find the right material in their hands.

It's easy to overlook a drama like Brothers, with its plain-spoken title and stern subject matter. Don't. The film is gripping---an honorable and beautifully acted addition to the tradition of homefront war stories.

Bier's film succeeded on the merits of its actors, and this one offers fine performances by Portman and Gyllenhaal, but Maguire doesn't cut the mustard.

Brothers is a heartbreaking film that speaks to the lifelong aftershocks of war, and to the powerful bonds of family and of love.

The film packs a wallop. Too bad about the missteps. It could've been a knockout.

Sheridan and Maguire orchestrate things perfectly here, running a line of tension through the film that explodes at the end, just as it should.

Brothers is a powerful statement on loyalty, love and the cost of war.

A soap opera ensues with more cliches than one movie can survive.

Plays like a more polished but less effective twin to the 2005 Danish original.

As predicable and cloying as Brothers sometimes is, the cast is fascinating, young actors now possessing the dramatic heft to pull something like this off.

It's almost as if Sheridan and screenwriter David Benioff were constructing a pile of old bones for a museum installation, with no live connective tissue required.