Peter Dinklage stars alongside Brendan Fraser and Josh Brolin for “going straight” crime comedy Brothers. From the director of Palms Springs, it’s the kind of harmless fun that used to bring queues to cinemas writes Stephen A Russell.
Brothers (2024)
Both Peter Dinklage and Josh Brolin—the leads of amiably goofball crime caper Brothers—have appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and attendant wings) not once, but twice.
Of course, Brolin played the big bad Thanos, having already portrayed Cable in the previously separate, but now conjoined Deadpool strand of the multiverse (confusing, we know). Likewise, Game of Thrones alum Peter Dinklage appeared as Dr Bolivar Trask in X-Men: Days of Future Past and as Eitri, forger of Thor’s hammer, in Avengers: Endgame.
Which is kind of ironic, Deadpool ex Alanis, because the suffocating chokehold of these enormous franchises have on the industry is oft regarded as the main reason low-key misadventures like Brothers are a rare breed. Much like the vanishing of the rom-com, it’s been left to the streamers to pick up the crowd-pleasing kook that once proliferated in cinemas, bringing us to this new offering from Prime Video.
Hailing from director Max Barbakow, he’s the safe pair of hands who gave us quirkily time-trippy rom-com Palms Springs, in which Saturday Night Live regular Andy Samberg and The Penguin’s mob queen Cristin Milioti attempted to extricate themselves from a Groundhog Day loop gone very wrong.
Working from a screenplay by Green Room and Blue Ruin actor Macon Blair, Barbakow revels in a shaggy dog story that casts a notably buff Dinklage as the perfectly shadily named Jady Munger. He’s a long-time crook who learned his craft from his on-the-run mum Cath, as played by Jen Landon in the film’s hectic opening sequence flashback, then eternal Oscar-nominee Glenn Close, both having a whale of a time.
That flashback shows us a young Jady (Jonathan Aidan Cockrell) learning how to blow a safe beside his twin brother Moke (Brooks Indergard). Flash forward a few decades and at least one stint inside for Jady, and Moke’s now played by Brolin. While his bro’s been away, he’s been trying to keep on the straight and narrow, but all that’s about to go out the window when Jady’s released unexpectedly early.
That’s because The Whale star Brendan Fraser’s corrupt guard James (Brendan Fraser) has cut a shady deal with his even more cranky dad, Judge Farful (king of the ‘80s cult hits M. Emmet Walsh). Why do they want Jady out? Simple, Cath nicked off with a bagful of emeralds way back when and the second Jady’s out, they’re on him for information about her whereabouts via a burner phone and the threat of broken bones.
All of which drives Jady crashing back into the reluctant arms of his bro, as Moke’s long-suffering partner Abby (Zola star Taylour Paige) looks on warily. Moke hasn’t heard from their mum since they were kids. Much to his annoyance, it turns out she has been in contact with Jady, who is calling in her boys to help them all get away with a big bag of cash. The scene’s set for a race against time to get to her and the gems before the Farful family get there first.
The barnies between the brothers are entertainingly handled as they deal with rusted-on recriminations and the constant threat of assault by the lowest arm of the law. Brolin and Dinklage are ideally suited to this style of odd-couple humour, bringing the world-weary gristle they’ve brought to films like True Grit and In Bruges. Along the way, they’ll encounter unlikely challenges, including a particularly amorous baboon in the company of a prison love letter-penning Marisa Tomei’s Bethesda and a golf buggy chase that’s about as far from the frenetic thrills of a Bond movie sequence as it’s possible to be, deliberately so.
We’re not meant to sweat this. Brothers is designed to be the sort of cheerily low-stakes film where you can cruise along on the charms of its big-ticket stars, just like the old days when not every movie had to be an Oscar contender, and we’d still turn up in droves for no hassles chuckles. Close, in particular, appears to be relishing her recent run of working-class grans to be reckoned with (see, also, The Deliverance and, errr, Hillbilly Elegy). Fraser leans into pantomime villain while Walsh all but chews the scenery as the film spins into owns-it silly moments like a mall showdown that could be read, much like certain zombie classics, as a scathing takedown of capitalist America.
Except it’s not. It’s just a bit of daft but fast-acting fun that comes with a cracking cast, all stitched up with Dinklage’s dryly delivered “I bet you’re wondering how we got here” style of narration. As for the family resemblance with Brolin? Never stopped fellow comic book movie time served stars and Twins co-leads Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito.
