The Brothers McMullen-*** (out of five) She's the One-** (out of five)
How much a film cost to make and the same film's qualitative worth are interdependent, which is why I get so irritated by reviewers who insist on critiquing the budget. I'm not only referring to countless Waterworld and Titanic essays, but also the write-ups for El Mariachi, The Brothers McMullen, and other cheapies in which those same lapses in story continuity or character development that often befall big-budget dreck are absolved by the critic because independent filmmaking is a nobler cause. Lest we forget the bottom line: a screenplay costs nothing to write except an author's time and patience, so a bad movie is a bad movie is a bad movie.
The Brothers McMullen isn't awful, mind you, just nowhere near as worthy as its Sundance-related acclaim would indicate. Writer-director-star Edward Burns is to be admired for even more than his penny-pinching when it comes to this, his first feature--unlike his peers of the time, he chose to leave Tarantino hipness to Tarantino: the film is free of cynicism. But, because The Brothers McMullen didn't resemble the majority of indie schlock from its era, Burns' was mistaken for a new voice in American cinema. This Milquetoast, walking Gap ad is hardly a isionary--he's lucky, especially to still be making pictures after his second effort, the atrocious She's the One.
In The Brothers McMullen, two Long Island brothers (Burns and Mike McGlone) who are having girl troubles room with their married older bro (Jack Mulcahy), a man caught in the jaws of infidelity. In virtually every scene, the Catholic siblings discuss women, the true nature of love, women, women, and women. Burns plays every scene from the heart (to a fault, frequently pointing up the technical limitations of his inexperienced cast and crew), and there are some fine moments, such as a demonstration of sexual politics using a banana. (It's not what you think.) The hyphenate has very obviously been taught to mine his own experiences for fiction fodder, as Burns' Barry is an aspiring screenwriter.
Although it isn't particularly witty or observant (the film is full of people having the kind of stock epiphanies one gets after knocking back too many beers), The Brothers McMullen has an extroverted attitude and twinkly Irish spirit that win us over. Contrary to faulting its weaknesses on lack of funds, I'd say the no-budget veneer lends the film added character. On the other hand, She's the One is negatively impacted by a budget 140x higher than that of its predecessor: Burns' enthusiasm compensates for the absence of a consequential viewpoint at $25,000, yet $3,500,000 seems downright wasteful in the same light.
Neither do irredeemable characters help She's the One along. McMullen vet McGlone's purely odious Wall Street exec hogs enough of the film's content that whole passages are spoiled by his entrance or the residue of his exit; McGlone could pass for Matt Damon's evil twin, and is about as charming as such a description implies. Burns' shockingly ungifted then-girlfriend Maxine Bahns also returns from his previous outing to play a waitress with a past that is never sufficiently explained.
The plot of She's the One is relatively similar to McMullen's, except that here there are only two brothers and their last name is Fitzpatrick. The scale is broadened a bit by a larger, more experienced cast ("Frasier"'s John Mahoney is a welcome presence as papa Fitzpatrick, an ex-firefighter who casually refers to his sons as daughters), a lot of whom ham it up like amateurs, regardless. ("Friends"' Jennifer Aniston, as McGlone's long-suffering wife, is another exception; she puts many of her co-stars to shame with sheer professionalism.) She's the One is slight and unlikable, a toxic combination, and it has me dreading Burns' third opus, No Looking Back, which is included alongside the aforementioned movies as part of the upcoming 'Edward Burns DVD Box Set,' but was AWOL in the last screener batch I received from Fox.
I feared the worst for the DVD transfer of The Brothers McMullen, a 16mm effort that exhibited grain the size of tennis balls in its theatrical presentation. To my relief, the image on the DVD is as good as the elements would surely allow, although if I'm not mistaken, the source print for this master was the 35mm blow-up, as the pan-and-scan side of the disc is sincerely compromised. (Allowing for minimal overscan, a 16mm frame can fit comfortably within the dimensions of a standard television, rendering cropping unnecessary.) The 1.85:1, 16x9-enhanced widescreen 'A' side is the preferable version; don't expect miracles where either is concerned in the areas of colour, contrast, etc. Audio comes in two flavours: newly created and surprisingly dynamic stereo or wheezy, 2-channel mono.
She's the One, which was shot in 35mm, leaves McMullen in the dust, visually speaking. Its DVD, too, houses both letterboxed and pan-and-scan versions on opposite sides, and again, I prefer the former: it looks cleaner and better compressed. If I hadn't seen the jaw-dropping picture on Fox's Where the Heart Is disc the night before, I might have more superlatives to spare for She's the One's demo-worthy video presentation. Audio again comes in two flavours: a discrete 4.0 mix and basically identical (in that neither is terribly active) 2.0 surround track. Tom Petty's songs have more kick when they play on MTV.
Both The Brothers McMullen and She's the One are strengthened by listening to Burns' accompanying DVD audio commentaries. With these rap sessions, he offers a comprehensive guide to dirt-poor productions. Whatever reservations I have about the attached comedy-dramas, I admire Burns for unpretentiously letting his work speak for itself and basically devoting the four hours or so to instead mentoring young filmmakers. Other extras found on each: a respective trailer and hyperlinks to Burns on the web.
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