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Brothers, The
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
In the past several years, there has been an increasing amount of films revolving around African-American characters that do not revolve around sex, drugs or violence. They show working professionals that have real-life issues and families that are strong and comforting to one another (the exceptionally good "Soul Food"). Some of these films do tend to go over the same ground, though. "The Brothers" follows in the path of "The Best Man" and "The Wood" following a group of twenty-something African-American professionals worrying about marriage and commitment, with the worries sparked mainly when one of their friends takes the next step into the big "M" word with their girlfriend.
The four friends here are Jackson (Morris Chestnut, who also starred in The Best Man), woman-hating playboy Brian (Bill Bellamy), not-very-happily married Derrick (D.L. Hughley) and reformed womanizer Terry (Shemar Moore). When Terry decides that he's met "The One" with a capital T, it sets off some worries in the lives in the remaining three. "The Brothers" does provide some preaching about relationships that comes off as largely pretty unoriginal - it really doesn't have anything much new to say and that's one of the reasons why the film does tend to drag at times.
Yet, there are some positive elements. When the four male actors are together, they work quite well with one another - it seems like they're genuinely friends from childhood. Once they separate and the movie watches how they deal with relationships, the movie becomes a bit of a mixed bag, as the only relationship that's basically well-realized is the one between Jackson and new girlfriend Denise (Gabrielle Union of "Bring It On", who is quite good here). Performances vary; Chestnut is good with the drama and Hugley certainly brings in the laughs; Bellamy is a little less successful and Moore gets the least amount of work to do. The female leads turn in fine performances; although their parts aren't always fully written, I felt the actresses brought a lot to their roles.
"The Brothers" doesn't provide any revelations about life or relationships, but it was generally good-natured and provided respectable performances.
The DVD
VIDEO: "The Brothers" is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen by Columbia/Tristar. The cinematography of Alexander Gruszynski does use colors nicely and have fine compositions; although there is a slightly soft look to the film, there is still a nice amount of detail. Although sharpness is not exceptional, the picture at least remains consistent, with no scenes that were noticably hazy or blurry.
The picture seemed almost completely free and clear of problems, with only a few minimal exceptions. I noticed a tiny trace of pixelation or two, but that was about it. Print flaws were essentially non-existent - I saw a couple of very minor instances of grain, but no marks, scratches or other noticable flaws. The picture seemed smooth and free of edge enhancement, as well. Colors looked natural and vibrant, with no instances of smearing or other problems. Not reference quality, but still very nice looking nonetheless.
SOUND: "The Brothers" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, but it really doesn't seem like it needed to be, with only a few exceptions. The majority of the film pretty much stays in the front speakers and when the hip-hop and r&b music isn't around, the sound generally folds up into simply dialogue-driven. A couple of scenes use the surrounds for background music and ambient sounds (as well as some suprising use of the surrounds for a scene towards the end), but use is generally very subtle. Audio quality seemed good, as the music came through clearly and warmly and dialogue sounded natural with no strain or other problems.
MENUS:: A nicely animated clip leads into the basic main menu - there's also nice transitions between menus.
EXTRAS::
Commentary: This is a commentary from writer/director Gary Hardwick, who discusses what it was like working with the actors as well as some of the stories from the set. There are stretches when it seems like Hardwick is filling space by discussing what's going on on-screen, but after a while he goes back to filling us in what happened during filming.
Deleted Scenes: 4 deleted scenes are provided and three have optional commentary by director Gary Hardwick to discuss why they were deleted. They are decent scenes and mainly, it seems as if they were cut simply for time and pacing reasons.
Exclusive Featurette: This "making of" documentary does provide some interesting interviews with director Gary Hardwick, who discusses his inspirations for the characters, but there's not a great deal else during the 21 minutes. The documentary feels padded out by a number of clips from the movie, as well.
Also: Music video - "Love Don't Love Me", by Eric Benet; trailers for "The Brothers", "Broken Hearts Club", "Wedding Planner", "My Best Friend's Wedding", "Trois" and John Carpenter's upcoming theatrical release "Ghosts Of Mars" and Filmographies.
Final Thoughts: "The Brothers" is a generally good-natured and basically entertaining picture, but it drags at times and doesn't really have anything new to say. Most will probably be satisfied with a rental. Columbia/Tristar's DVD does provide good audio/video quality and some extras though, so those who are already fans will likely want to pick the DVD up.
In the past several years, there has been an increasing amount of films revolving around African-American characters that do not revolve around sex, drugs or violence. They show working professionals that have real-life issues and families that are strong and comforting to one another (the exceptionally good "Soul Food"). Some of these films do tend to go over the same ground, though. "The Brothers" follows in the path of "The Best Man" and "The Wood" following a group of twenty-something African-American professionals worrying about marriage and commitment, with the worries sparked mainly when one of their friends takes the next step into the big "M" word with their girlfriend.
The four friends here are Jackson (Morris Chestnut, who also starred in The Best Man), woman-hating playboy Brian (Bill Bellamy), not-very-happily married Derrick (D.L. Hughley) and reformed womanizer Terry (Shemar Moore). When Terry decides that he's met "The One" with a capital T, it sets off some worries in the lives in the remaining three. "The Brothers" does provide some preaching about relationships that comes off as largely pretty unoriginal - it really doesn't have anything much new to say and that's one of the reasons why the film does tend to drag at times.
Yet, there are some positive elements. When the four male actors are together, they work quite well with one another - it seems like they're genuinely friends from childhood. Once they separate and the movie watches how they deal with relationships, the movie becomes a bit of a mixed bag, as the only relationship that's basically well-realized is the one between Jackson and new girlfriend Denise (Gabrielle Union of "Bring It On", who is quite good here). Performances vary; Chestnut is good with the drama and Hugley certainly brings in the laughs; Bellamy is a little less successful and Moore gets the least amount of work to do. The female leads turn in fine performances; although their parts aren't always fully written, I felt the actresses brought a lot to their roles.
"The Brothers" doesn't provide any revelations about life or relationships, but it was generally good-natured and provided respectable performances.
The DVD
VIDEO: "The Brothers" is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen by Columbia/Tristar. The cinematography of Alexander Gruszynski does use colors nicely and have fine compositions; although there is a slightly soft look to the film, there is still a nice amount of detail. Although sharpness is not exceptional, the picture at least remains consistent, with no scenes that were noticably hazy or blurry.
The picture seemed almost completely free and clear of problems, with only a few minimal exceptions. I noticed a tiny trace of pixelation or two, but that was about it. Print flaws were essentially non-existent - I saw a couple of very minor instances of grain, but no marks, scratches or other noticable flaws. The picture seemed smooth and free of edge enhancement, as well. Colors looked natural and vibrant, with no instances of smearing or other problems. Not reference quality, but still very nice looking nonetheless.
SOUND: "The Brothers" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, but it really doesn't seem like it needed to be, with only a few exceptions. The majority of the film pretty much stays in the front speakers and when the hip-hop and r&b music isn't around, the sound generally folds up into simply dialogue-driven. A couple of scenes use the surrounds for background music and ambient sounds (as well as some suprising use of the surrounds for a scene towards the end), but use is generally very subtle. Audio quality seemed good, as the music came through clearly and warmly and dialogue sounded natural with no strain or other problems.
MENUS:: A nicely animated clip leads into the basic main menu - there's also nice transitions between menus.
EXTRAS::
Commentary: This is a commentary from writer/director Gary Hardwick, who discusses what it was like working with the actors as well as some of the stories from the set. There are stretches when it seems like Hardwick is filling space by discussing what's going on on-screen, but after a while he goes back to filling us in what happened during filming.
Deleted Scenes: 4 deleted scenes are provided and three have optional commentary by director Gary Hardwick to discuss why they were deleted. They are decent scenes and mainly, it seems as if they were cut simply for time and pacing reasons.
Exclusive Featurette: This "making of" documentary does provide some interesting interviews with director Gary Hardwick, who discusses his inspirations for the characters, but there's not a great deal else during the 21 minutes. The documentary feels padded out by a number of clips from the movie, as well.
Also: Music video - "Love Don't Love Me", by Eric Benet; trailers for "The Brothers", "Broken Hearts Club", "Wedding Planner", "My Best Friend's Wedding", "Trois" and John Carpenter's upcoming theatrical release "Ghosts Of Mars" and Filmographies.
Final Thoughts: "The Brothers" is a generally good-natured and basically entertaining picture, but it drags at times and doesn't really have anything new to say. Most will probably be satisfied with a rental. Columbia/Tristar's DVD does provide good audio/video quality and some extras though, so those who are already fans will likely want to pick the DVD up.
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