SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Baron Ronan Doyle With its American remake a thing of recent memory, Brødre began steadily to tempt me more and more. A great admirer of co-screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen and general fan of Danish cinema, I recently acquiesced to these mental demands.Having just collected his irksome and opprobrious brother Jannik from prison, Michael sits down to a last family dinner before shipping off to Afghanistan. As he prepares to leave behind wife Sarah and their two daughters, his younger and less adulated counterpart argues with their father. When Michael is reported MIA presumed dead, Jannik is forced to pull himself together to take care of the family his brother has unwillingly left behind.A film based almost entirely on the complexity of familial dynamics, Brødre quickly establishes each of these to us even before Michael departs early into the film. We see instantly the strained relationship between Jannik and his father, the unmistakable fraternal bond, the love of a father for his daughters, and the quiet trepidation of a family sending one of their own to unknown territory. Brødre's strength lies, as well as in the clarity and accuracy of its characters' relationships, in co-writer/director Susanne Bier's ability to forge a subtle yet almost tangible tension and animosity in scenes. Her film combines the merest of glances with the shortest of sighs to show us all those things exposition cannot, the weariness of a son living in his brother's shadow one of many such things conveyed almost subliminally. Regular parallels are drawn between the film's two settings, the shots regularly mirroring each other and flickering from the eyes of one character to another. Nikolaj Lie Kaas delivers a consistently brilliant performance, the film's best in my eyes, expertly combining the general dislikeability of his character with the softer kinder touches which cause the audience to warm to him. Both Nielsen and Thomsen offer fine performances, but the true praise belongs to their characters' children, the young actresses churning out astonishing displays of genuine emotion to shame their elders. Issues of family, jealousy, love, and lust are covered in equal measure, though the standout theme is that of war and the horrors engendered by its experience. Thomsen's granite face of stoicism tells a story no words ever can, affording us much emotion and further drawing us into this compelling and engaging story. To highlight a flaw, the cinematography was not always the most appealing, the film's low budget shining through in this respect, though never detracting from the effect of the film itself.Upholding the hugely high standard I've come to expect from the Danes, Brødre serves up an intriguing and entirely real family drama, bringing with it a rumination upon war and the effect it has upon those who are involved in it both directly and indirectly. Not afraid to put its characters, and thereby its audience, in a difficult place, it makes for a unique and memorable viewing that offers plenty to chew on.

bandw It's not hard to classify this one--it's an intense psychological drama. Whatever mood you were in before you started, you are most likely to be in a somber mood at the end. Perhaps the less you know about the story the more it will involve you. This is one of those movies that makes you ask the questions, "What would I have done in that situation," and "How would I have lived with my decision."The main thrust of the story is an intimate examination of how a tragedy affects family dynamics. Nature abhors a vacuum. Guilt, jealousy, and doubt drive this to an intense climax.Parformances are first rate, particularly Connie Nielsen.

Robert J. Maxwell A kind of prune Danish about a happily married couple, Michael and Sarah and their two doll-like daughters, and Michael's reckless and irresponsible younger brother Jannik. Michael, a major in the army, is sent to Afghanistan where his helicopter is shot down, and he's thrown into a prison cell with a Danish comrade. Beaten, and with a gun at his head, Michael is forced to batter to death his cell mate and friend.Meanwhile, back home, having been informed mistakenly that Michael was dead, Sarah and Jannik come to respect one another and even to be attracted to one another, although nothing goes beyond a tentative but meaningful kiss.Michael is rescued and returned to his home. But, unable to face his own guilt, he claims never to have seen any other prisoners, and he tells his family nothing about his part in the murder, which, although bloodless, is an especially brutal scene. He's not the guy who left home. He partly blames his family for the killing because it was of them that he was thinking when he bashed his friend's head in. He's irritable, suspicious of Jannik and Sarah, bullies the two kids, strikes his wife, and finally is jailed for smashing his own home. Sarah visits him and orders him to tell of his experiences or she will leave him for good. He tells her, and presumably Michael recovers and the family remains intact. I say "presumably" because this isn't a simple movie with simple answers to questions with labyrinthine implications. The film doesn't endorse the cliché of "getting it off your chest" and putting it behind you. It's not that dumb.That, basically, is the story. It's a rather long movie considering that it isn't very dense with incident. I kept waiting for boredom to set in but it didn't happen. For one thing, Connie Nielson as Sarah is very attractive. For another, the performances all around were outstanding. Michael, in particular, embodies the sort of compulsive military type who believes that everything should be in order, that individuals should take responsibility for what they do, and that talking solves nothing. John Wayne would have approved. Then, too, I was curious to see just how far this post-traumatic stress would drive Michael. Would he really kill his family? We know he's capable of the most tempestuous emotions, despite his outer reserve, because we have seen him scream with horror when a cocked pistol is pressed against his forehead.Finally, it gradually came to me that this is a story about people who fought terrorism and are not Americans, although the invasion of Afghanistan and the toppling of the Taliban was a response to the attacks of 9/11. In many Europen cities on September 12th, 2001, major newspapers ran headlines like, "Today We Are All Americans." And some of those nations went to war with us and some of their soldiers died doing it. It has been not quite six years since those horrible initial events. And who would march beside us today? Where are OUR brothers now? What happened? It's a sobering and enlightening movie.

shark-43 An unexpected gem - I had heard good things about the film but what people told me made me expect a war thriller or something and instead it is this simple yet powerful story about family, war, violence, brothers, secrets and recovery. The performances are splendid, the script is lean and strong. So many emotional scenes are delivered with no speaking - just emotion and the whole film is well shot. The director knows just when to leave a scene and go to another. The scenes of war and a prisoner's camp are so real, so raw - they are at times hard to watch. A real gem - a powerful drama. The relationship between the the brothers is so well set-up - you know who they are immediately and yet they are not stock clichés. They are both multi-dimensional. Human. Something you don't see in 2005 Hollywood movies that much.