Faulkner joins THE BROTHERS BLOOM on their final job
Director Rian Johnson arrived on the scene in 2006 with BRICK, a highly original film noir-cum-high school movie. Now credit where it's due; it was a gutsy idea, but for me it didn't work. Here, with THE BROTHERS BLOOM, the basic premise is one of the oldest in the book, however it turns out to be to the film's credit that it is not as original as Brick, as it allows Johnson to freshen up a tired genre with a dash of his own undeniable flair without going overboard.
The film opens with an introduction to our anti-heroes; Bloom (Adrian Brody) and Stephen (Mark Ruffalo), the titular brothers, at the tender ages of 10 and 13. This introduction details the brothers' first successful con, and is shot with an oddly poetic antiquated style; imagine Tim Burton filming Tom Sawyer and you'd be along the right lines. So they embark upon a life of deceit about which Bloom, the younger, is never entirely happy, but along with it he goes. For these first few minutes I was a little worried as the style was quite simply over the top. I was expecting a film as pretentious as Brick, but thankfully when the brothers grow up, so does the film. The premise is fairly standard; two con men with one final job. That job just so happens to involve a beautiful target played by Rachel Weisz. And, of course, one of them falls in love with her. It often feels like a succession of comedy sketches, and the plot is largely a vehicle for a sketch comedy set in many beautiful European locations (even the scenes in America were actually filmed in Europe). But this makes it easier to forgive the many blatantly ridiculous elements in the story: that the brothers somehow manage to persuade their target, Penelope, to give up the reclusive life she has lived the past few decades and spontaneously decide to sail around the world with them is one of the oddest things to have happened in a film since Julia Roberts decided to kiss Hugh Grant in NOTTING HILL. But, if you can suspend your disbelief at this point, you'll have no trouble with the rest of it. And so off they go globe-trotting to indulge in much intrigue and comedy and the films skips merrily around the world, double-crossing its way to the inevitable conclusion. Occasionally it descends into cliché, and some of the characters push their caricatures a little too far; especially 'Diamond Dog' (played by Oscar winner Maximilian Schell) a truly ridiculous character with, thankfully, fairly limited screen time. At the end of the day though, whilst not quite a masterpiece (and I don't think Johnson set out to make a masterpiece) it's hugely entertaining cinema, which I suspect will divide opinion right down the middle. Indeed Rian commented to me in our interview that people seem to either love or hate his films, and that those who love one tend to hate the other. I can't argue with that.rating: 4
The Brothers Bloom is due for limited release in the US in December, with a wider release to follow on January 16th 2009. No UK date has been set.