Four Brothers stars Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson, and Andre Benjamin in a film directed by John Singleton of Boyz in tha Hood fame. It’s about four troubled young men who grew up in a foster home and are all reunited years later by the murder of their mother. While the plot itself was pretty good, I though some of the movie’s lame attempts at comic relief caused the film to be too unbelievable. This is not a bad movie, but it has a few too many dumb parts.

The film opens showing the woman’s murder, then shows the boys coming home for her funeral. The police are waiting outside the house to see the guys back into town because they know them to be trouble, especially when together. The police also know that the four brothers won’t let the murder of their foster mother go unpunished. As soon as the funeral is over, the brothers start asking questions and very quickly uncover a much bigger plot that involves corrupt officials, local gangsters, and more.

What brought this movie down was its unbelievable plot devices. Like in one scene they see this kid playing baseball and they offer him a whole box of Baby Ruth candy bars to go distract a cop. So we are to believe they just happened to have a whole box of those candy bars ready in what is such a blatantly obvious product placement scene? In another part, two guys are talking in a bar, then they go outside and one is shot several times. Did nobody in the bar see them go outside or hear the gunshots? There were several loose ends and poorly thought out parts of the story just like this.

John Singleton’s direction here is pretty good and he keeps the pace quick. There are two major action sequences in the film that play out really well, including one car chase scene in heavy snow and on icy roads. The only drawback is that CGI is used for two different car crash parts, and you can tell from the look of the accident that it is not real. I’ve seen cars wrecked in very low budget action movies, so I don’t understand why they had to use CGI in this movie. I detest the overuse of CGI when the real thing could be used, and since the wrecks happen toward the end of the action sequences, those unnecessary special effects kill the scene’s grand finale. There is a big shootout in a house that looked very good, though.

Marl Wahlberg and Tyrese Gibson are great together as the two leads of the story, though some of Wahlberg’s dialogue seemed forced. Tyrese previously stole the show in 2 Fast 2 Furious, also directed by Singleton, and I think he has promise as an actor. Andre Benjamin of Outkast turns in a very good performance as the only brother who never left down and was closest to the mother. Garrett Hedlund played the youngest brother and he seemed out of place with the rest of the group, but I think that was intentional. Also look for Chiwetel Ejiofor (The Operative from Serenity) in a small supporting role as the local gang leader. I really enjoy watching him act and he seemed to have fun playing the tough and mean leader.

All in all, Four Brothers is an okay movie that could have been better had it stayed more serious and not used CGI when it didn’t have to. Be sure to watch the end credits for a few extras. The DVD comes with some commentary, some behind the scenes stuff, and some deleted scenes, but I wasn’t interested enough to watch any of them.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age