Four Brothers
makes a mighty big mess.
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John Singleton really needs a comeback.
Shaft
and
2 Fast 2 Furious
just didn't stand up compared to his early promise, and film fans have been ardently waiting for the follow-up to
Boyz N The Hood. Four Brothers
probably won't suffice. It's a big, crazy, splendid, noisy train wreck; but it's still a wreck.
When gangbangers shoot their adoptive mother (Fionnula Flanagan) during a robbery, her four sons come home to bury her and seek vengeance. Actually the burying part doesn't seem as important as the vengeance
. Four Brothers
would lie solidly in Charles Bronson/Dirty Harry territory if it weren't for the fact that the brothers are, gasp, miscegenated. The script milks this for all it's worth, which isn't much. There are two Anglos: Jackie (Garrett Hedlund), the baby of the family, a punk rocker; and the oldest, Bobby (Wahlberg), known as the "Michigan Mauler" for his, um, hockey skills-and two African-Americans: Angel (Tyrese), a soldier and a ladies' man; and Jeremiah (André Benjamin, best known to white folks for singing that "Hey Ya" song), the only respectable one, who's happily married and wants to be a real-estate developer. This unlikely quartet must band together to, in the words of Wahlberg, "bang on some doors" until they find out what really happened to their ma. But don't be surprised if they Uncover a Snake's Nest of Lies and Corruption that Reaches to the Highest Levels!
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The four men have a genuine chemistry together, entertaining to watch even in the film's most diminished moments. Wahlberg looks honest, bloated and real, but at times disinterested; André and Tyrese turn in impressively actorly performances. But the real revelation here is newcomer Garrett Hedlund, recently Patroclus in the debacle called
Troy
. One can only hope he gets some good work before becoming the next Androgynous It Boy, devoured by the same sinister machinery that made short work of River Phoenix and now has only the puny likes of Orlando Bloom on which to feed.
Singleton's cast is strong, but they're working with a flabby, uneven script, which in some places depicts murder as horrific and meaningful while elsewhere we're supposed to view it as mere garbage disposal. Wonderful but bizarrely joyous Motown plays intrusively throughout the film, and it's never quite clear what Singleton's trying to do with it-a metaphor for the indecision of the film as a whole perhaps?
Four Brothers
comes across as riotous and rowdy, trying hard to please-though we're left wondering why vengeance means having quite so much fun.
