20 for 2009 - Brothers

Back in 2004 Susanne Bier directed a romantic drama set against the backdrop of the conflict in Afganistan, Brødre. It did pretty well, winning audience awards at Sundance and Boston, and receieving high praise for the performances by the lead trio. In the US it went on to gross just under $400k. Not bad, but nothing special.

It was enough though for some unscrupulous Hollywood producer types to think, lets adapt the story to a US setting and remake the film with a young hot American cast and make loads of money. Why not, that's been done before? You see at this point I wouldn't be interested at all. The original was OK but I found the Danish homefront scenes painfully slow and the chemistry between the brothers a little forced.

Then I saw who was involved and my opinion changed.

As the bad boy brother we have Jake Gyllenhaal, and whilst the bad boy may be a stretch, the letting him fix my kitchen, my kids and then my hormonal urges wouldn't be an issue at all.

The army brother is Tobey Maguire. It's risky casting but the darker sides Maguire showed off in The Good German may be handy here. I don't want to give the plot away but the experiences his character copes with in Afghanistan and the PTSD he suffers on his return will be plenty of an acting challenge.


As Tobey's wife and Jake's sister-in-law is Natalie Protman. I rally miss the good Natalie performances, you know Leon, Closer and that one knockout scene in Cold Mountain, but over the last 5 years she's been happy to coast in unworthy productions and maybe this is a chance of a turnaround.

All three of these actors are capable of turning this into a fantastic film, but they will all need to be working at the top of their game for the story to suceed and to me that's part of the appeal.

The screenplay has been written by David Benioff (25th Hour, The Kite Runner) and Jim Sheridan is directing. As long as Jim avoids the sentimentality he allows to creep into his productions this could be in safe hands.