Brothers by Blood: Crime Family Revenge Tale Divorced from Genuine Drama
By Kim Hughes
Rating: C
Visually drab, tonally flat, and with precious few sympathetic or relatable characters, Brothers by Blood reduces the high-minded concept of filial loyalty across multiple generations to a paint-by-numbers power play.
It also has the somewhat dubious distinction of having Belgian-born star Matthias Schoenaerts cast as a Philly homeboy opposite Swedish/American actor Joel Kinnaman. Neither scans especially credibly —even with the gnarly threads, both still seem effortlessly fab in that continental way — though both appear committed.
Schoenaerts is Peter Flood, the taciturn, emotionally whipped cousin to Michael Flood (Kinnaman), whose ruthlessness is well-suited to his role as a roofer. Of course, that’s just a cover: Michael is a low-level mobster very much on the Irish side of the divide and, like his father before him, enemy to and of the Italians.
Through flashbacks we learn that a tragic accident on Peter’s side of the family created the initial territorial fissure in the grey, bleak Philadelphia where the Floods live, a break that soon transcended the personal to include the professional and vice versa.
The tragedy also divided Peter and Michael’s fathers, who were brothers, while decimating the home life of Peter and his dad, played by an appropriately weathered Ryan Phillippe. The adult Flood cousins still bear the emotional scars wrought by their fathers’ fraught relationship.
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While it’s clear that Michael is keen to leverage that bad blood for nefarious gain, Peter is the conscience who prefers boxing to shakedowns. Or maybe his doe-eyed stare and limited dialog simply help distract from the accent.
Anyway, there’s a dead racehorse, monies owed to bad guys, a failed assassination attempt, revenge murders, plus Grace, the literal girl-next-door (It Follows' Maika Monroe) returned all grown up and slinging drinks at the neighbourhood pub.
Grace’s swift descent into the heart of the matter is guaranteed as her brother Jimmy (Paul Schneider) owes money to Michael. A romance with Peter also blooms. Then comes the twist ending which feels like too little too late and only possibly likely given what has come before.
Not to be mean or overly simplistic, but at the 25-minute mark, I made this note: “sluuuugish. Couldn’t someone please eat a cheese steak? Did I really just write that?”
I confess to not having read novelist Peter Dexter’s 1991 book Brotherly Love, upon which the film is based — and way better title with its double entendre, no? — so I don’t know if Brothers by Blood is faithful, an improvement or a travesty. (Director Jérémie Guez wrote the screenplay).
I do know I was keen to see the film because I am a Schoenaerts fangirl, but that devotion did not sustain me to the film’s dispiriting finish. Meh, they can’t all be winners.
Brothers by Blood. Directed by Jérémie Guez. Starring Matthias Schoenaerts, Joel Kinnaman, Maika Monroe, Paul Schneider, and Ryan Phillippe. Now available on VOD, DVD, and Blu-ray.