Brothers
★★½Skip itIs Brothers worth watching? (No spoilers)
So close to greatness. The cast is strong, but the premise the trailer sells (a soldier coming home and questioning his own family) doesn't really start until over an hour in, and the big turning point feels rushed. Decent, not essential.
⚠️ Spoiler warning: everything below the quick take, including the full review and ending explained, contains spoilers.
Brothers review
Brothers just barely fell short of greatness.
I felt slightly betrayed from the trailers, given the supposed premise, a man retuning from war to question his own family, didn't start until the 1:10 mark.
The key turning point, the belief that his wife and brother slept together, had no real basis or reasoning, and while I get that was somewhat the point, it just felt rushed in both how it was introduced, and how it concluded.
Brothers ending explained
Sam, a Marine presumed dead in Afghanistan, comes home after being held captive, where he was forced to kill a fellow Marine to survive. Traumatized and unable to talk about it, he grows convinced that his wife Grace slept with his brother Tommy while he was gone. After a breakdown at his daughter's birthday, he trashes the kitchen and holds police off with a gun before being taken into custody.
In the final scene Grace visits Sam at a VA mental hospital. He finally tells her what he did in captivity, that he killed Private Willis, and says he doesn't know if he can live with it. She holds him, and in voiceover he wonders if he'll ever be at peace.
The point is that his jealousy was never about Grace and Tommy; it was guilt and PTSD looking for somewhere to go. Opening up is the first step toward healing.
My take: the accusation of an affair comes out of nowhere and is wrapped up just as fast. Somehow this movie needed another 30 minutes.
Does Brothers have a post-credits scene?
No. Brothers has no mid-credits or post-credits scene.
Movies like Brothers
- The Hurt Locker (2008) – the war that soldiers bring back home
- Manchester by the Sea (2016) – a family dealing with grief nobody can fix
- Jarhead (2005) – Jake Gyllenhaal in the Marines
- Thank You for Your Service (2017) – soldiers struggling to readjust after coming home