Brotherhood Review: 6 Ups & 5 Downs

2. There's An Awesome Female Character (For Once)

One of the movie's best and most tragically underused assets is Rosa Coduri as Poppy, the token female in Daley's gang who brings the movie some much needed feminine presence...all without taking any of her clothes off.

Poppy chastises her male comrades for being sexist early on, and throughout mocks their sexual advances towards her, while basically being shown to be the one remotely decent, thoughtful person in the gang.

She has an exchange with Sam late in the movie that's undeniably heavy-handed but still undeniably effective, and works to somewhat defend the movie from being dismissed as completely uninterested in the female experience.

Though women are mostly eye candy here, at least there's one who's smart and spunky, even if the story could totally take place without her. If Clarke had beefed up her role and made it integral to the plot, she could've been a real winner rather than merely a pleasantly surprising guest star.