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It should be impossible to look at Brothers and not make a parallel with Ivan Reitman's Twins , because of the differences between its lead actors, Peter Dinklage and Josh Brolin. But there are far more similarities than that: there's criminality, a debt-chasing villain, sharp flashes of violence , and a road trip to reconnect with an absent mother. There's also the actual difference between the brothers: who they are inside.
They are both all over this movie, in good ways and bad: Cohen's heart, so evident in Men In Black 3, runs as an undercurrent in Brothers, but there's too much of the needless slapstick of some of his other projects. As for Blair, there's more of the dull comedy of Small Crimes than the indie vibes of his more successful projects, like I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore.
Josh Brolin, meanwhile, is a little lost; uncomfortable in his skin as the slightly bumbling doofus brother with a good heart. There's a moment where the attempted humor zeroes in on the fact that he's wearing only white y-fronts, and it came with the epiphany that Brolin is apparently trying to emulate John Cena's easy, silly charisma.
There is also, quite jarringly, precious little attempt to convince the audience that either of the brothers belongs to their upbringing, which I found ruinously distracting. Though not as much as the startling realization partway through that Brothers never actually does anything at all with the fact that Moke and Jady are twins.
So Is Brothers Actually Funny? Brief Flashes Of Humor Can't Fix Its Biggest Issue That isn't to say that Brothers doesn't raise some laughs: some of the slapstick is enough to raise the odd smile, but they are few and far between. The gentler comedy of two brothers with very different sensibilities, and their outrageous career-criminal mother on a road trip is more successful, but it's pushed aside too much.
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