2. Brothers - Capt Sam Cahill
A film with good intentions and a reasonably strong story, but which played out like little more than a daytime cable drama, and ended up feeling hugely disappointing right up to the point it was forgotten entirely. Which was precisely eight and a half minutes after the credits rolled, probably. Remade from a Danish original, Brothers takes a traditional tragic love story - first love disappears and is presumed dead, so best friend swoops in and "steals" his girl, before first love suddenly appears alive - but doesn't do the necessary work to entwine the stories well enough. For all of its sins, Brothers does actually include a couple of good performances - from Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman (who are a much more convincing couple than Maguire and Portman) - but Tobey Maguire sticks out somewhat in comparison. For all of his versatile roles, Maguire is convincing noone as a former football star and all-action marine, and it takes his portrait of PTSD to lift the performance from odd mediocrity towards anything like engagement. To be fair to him, the good bits of Maguire's performance are badly derailed by his director's creative decisions, which misuse his performance badly and rob it of all impact.