It’s a real shame to see such talented actors end up in this kind of uninspiring project.

It’s quite paradoxical to see streaming platforms offer themselves the services of highly talented actors and actresses, and with them large audiences, to star them in productions with scripts worthy of what was considered direct-to-DVD a few years ago. With The Instigators at Apple, Killer Heat a few weeks ago at Prime and now Brothers with MGM, a studio that has become Amazon’s poor catch-all factory.

We follow the twin Monger brothers, Moke (Josh Brolin) and Jady (Peter Dinklage), whose resemblance and size are diametrically opposed. While Moke had settled down to a quiet life, Jady was in prison and finds himself blackmailed by Officer Farful (Brendan Fraser), trading his freedom for half the reward of one last job. Both embroiled in this last job, the two brothers attempt to rebuild a relationship shattered by Jady’s arrest five years earlier and tarnished by repeated lies.

If the initial scenario sounds familiar, that’s because it is, and the execution doesn’t roar with originality either. Director Max Barbakow delivers a work with an aesthetic that is often flat or even insipid, characteristic of a product prefabricated by Amazon with no real intention of serving up anything interesting. This is all the more apparent when you realize that Brothers uses only a tiny fraction of its potential by casting such fine actors as Brolin, Dinklage and Fraser.

What’s quickly noticeable is that Barbakow quickly switches to autopilot, not only in his filmmaking, but also in the directing of his actors. Brolin and Dinklage seem rather well inspired for their characters, but it’s clear that Fraser and Glenn Close – playing the mother of the twins – are constantly overacting, with no comic effect to speak of. In the end, it’s a much deeper problem that impacts Brothers, namely that it never manages to deliver a laugh throughout. The brothers’ burglary skills are hardly used at all, and in the end serve only as an introduction, with no payoff in the development of the story. Brothers seems to almost accidentally find a main stake in its second half, although it feels as if the script is wandering most of the time towards a finale it doesn’t yet know. Regardless, we know it won’t raise our interest.

This could be the worst complaint you could make about Barbakow’s film: it’s uninteresting in every way, despite a golden cast, and never surprises with relevant script choices or visual gags that play on the difference between its two lead actors. And yet, I think there’s plenty of material to be found in these two actors, given the means and a good script.

Considering that production of the film took place over three years ago, in September 2021, it’s clear that Amazon quickly realized that the project would never have a chance of an official theatrical release, and didn’t know what to do with the finished film they now had in their hands, opting for the landfill option. A sad decision, but an understandable one given the final outcome.