larryssa-68-866888 We all know that American cinema can't help itself to do remake of foreign films... That's why i saw Brothers before this original danish movie. When in this one all appears to be shot in steady cam, the American way tries to put some melodramatic trigger.This version is about feelings, about situation and personal change: life make us evolve like every decision we take and nothing is good or bad, there is a lot of in between. The chose to accumulate the short shootings, practically no music or just a few notes on one instrument,are trying to bring us along this day to day story really well interpreted. The characters in their flaws or every day basis are believable, there is not so much emphasis like in the good but too much American film. It's in their nature to modify, adjust the deepness of the movie and after seeing this 2004 version, we actually miss something: this authenticity.In both versions, dialogs, ellipses are exactly the same, but characters turned out to be different. We actually have to exact opposite films and this is a real challenge to see both.

tjsprik One of my top 5 favorite movies is Suzanne Bier's "After the Wedding." This movie is as close to perfection as a film can be. So I was anxious to see another one of her productions and had to actually purchase a copy of Brothers in order to view it. With such rave reviews, I thought it would be worth it (fortunately paid only $7 on amazon).Unfortunately this movie a disappointment. The plot line holds so much potential, but for some reason it just doesn't work. Connie Nielsen, whom I loved in Gladiator, doesn't give us much of a performance here, and her hair is looks unwashed in a lot of scenes, I assume that's due to the highlights she had at the time.The actor who portrays Michael did a superb job. He is put in a terrible position while in captivity and we feel his anguish as the film progresses after that incident.The brother who becomes a potential love interest is so unappealing as to make her interest in him hard to understand. He's unattractive and smokes incessantly, and I hate to be shallow but honestly, how could anyone be attracted to someone who smelled like smoke all the time?! I did like the final scene and was satisfied with the ending. But everything else was so-so. Perhaps my expectations were too high.The various crying scenes were not well-done at all, and in a movie which involves so much gut-wrenching emotion, it was vital the actors get those scenes right. But they failed miserably.Rent it if you want to see it, but don't buy it. I give the story an 8, but the acting a 3.

Robert J. Maxwell A kind of prune Danish about a happily married couple, Michael and Sarah and their two doll-like daughters, and Michael's reckless and irresponsible younger brother Jannik. Michael, a major in the army, is sent to Afghanistan where his helicopter is shot down, and he's thrown into a prison cell with a Danish comrade. Beaten, and with a gun at his head, Michael is forced to batter to death his cell mate and friend.Meanwhile, back home, having been informed mistakenly that Michael was dead, Sarah and Jannik come to respect one another and even to be attracted to one another, although nothing goes beyond a tentative but meaningful kiss.Michael is rescued and returned to his home. But, unable to face his own guilt, he claims never to have seen any other prisoners, and he tells his family nothing about his part in the murder, which, although bloodless, is an especially brutal scene. He's not the guy who left home. He partly blames his family for the killing because it was of them that he was thinking when he bashed his friend's head in. He's irritable, suspicious of Jannik and Sarah, bullies the two kids, strikes his wife, and finally is jailed for smashing his own home. Sarah visits him and orders him to tell of his experiences or she will leave him for good. He tells her, and presumably Michael recovers and the family remains intact. I say "presumably" because this isn't a simple movie with simple answers to questions with labyrinthine implications. The film doesn't endorse the cliché of "getting it off your chest" and putting it behind you. It's not that dumb.That, basically, is the story. It's a rather long movie considering that it isn't very dense with incident. I kept waiting for boredom to set in but it didn't happen. For one thing, Connie Nielson as Sarah is very attractive. For another, the performances all around were outstanding. Michael, in particular, embodies the sort of compulsive military type who believes that everything should be in order, that individuals should take responsibility for what they do, and that talking solves nothing. John Wayne would have approved. Then, too, I was curious to see just how far this post-traumatic stress would drive Michael. Would he really kill his family? We know he's capable of the most tempestuous emotions, despite his outer reserve, because we have seen him scream with horror when a cocked pistol is pressed against his forehead.Finally, it gradually came to me that this is a story about people who fought terrorism and are not Americans, although the invasion of Afghanistan and the toppling of the Taliban was a response to the attacks of 9/11. In many Europen cities on September 12th, 2001, major newspapers ran headlines like, "Today We Are All Americans." And some of those nations went to war with us and some of their soldiers died doing it. It has been not quite six years since those horrible initial events. And who would march beside us today? Where are OUR brothers now? What happened? It's a sobering and enlightening movie.

Roland E. Zwick The Danish film, "Brothers," offers a powerful reminder that the dehumanizing effects of war often extend far beyond the confines of the battlefield.In this tale of two siblings who couldn't be more different, Michael is the "good" son, a solid family man with a wife and two daughters and a very strong sense of moral rectitude. Jannik is the "bad" son, a ne'er-do-well drifter who is routinely in trouble with the law and who, as the movie opens, has just been released from prison for seriously injuring a woman in a botched robbery attempt. When Michael is shipped to Afghanistan as part of a U.N. fighting force, he is quickly shot down and taken prisoner by the Taliban militia. Believing him to be dead, the military mistakenly informs Michael's family that he has been killed in action. Jannik is so devastated by the loss of his brother that he vows to help Sarah raise her two daughters. Against their better judgment, Jannik and Sarah begin to develop romantic feelings for one another, a situation that leads to great complications after Michael is eventually freed from his captivity and he attempts to pick up where he left off back home. Unfortunately, Michael's return to normalcy is further complicated by the memory of a heinous act he was "forced" to commit against one of his fellow soldiers while in the camp. Before long, Michael is taking out his anger, guilt and frustration on his own terrified family, and in a sudden role reversal, it is Jannik who must now come to the aid of the brother who had always been there for him when he needed him most. In many ways, this is a story about two brothers who both find redemption for sins of the past.Although the love triangle aspect could easily have relegated "Brothers" to the realm of soap opera, the movie manages to avoid that fate, thanks partly to the restrained way in which the script deals with the subject matter and partly to the sense of reality that permeates the film. These are all fully fleshed-out human beings trying to cope with events far beyond their control - be they the brutalizing psychological effects of a war in a foreign land or the more familiar entanglements and complexities in all things related to the human heart. No one is made out to be the "hero" or the "villain," which belies the wisdom of labeling people in such simplistic terms to begin with (as the boys' father clearly does, having long ago declared Michael to be his one "true" son and all but disowning the troublesome Jannik). The film is filled with haunting, memorable moments that touch us at a deep level, as we see a decent man being driven to madness by a single gruesome action in his life, as well as the devastating ripple effect it has on those he loves.The actors - Ulrich Thomsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, and the exquisite Connie Nielsen - truly make us care about the characters they are playing, and the final scene of confession and redemption is haunting in its subtlety and simplicity.As one of the first films willing to acknowledge, let alone explore, the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the small-scaled but memorable "Brothers," written by Anders Thomas Jensen and co-written and directed by Susanne Bier, earns a place in movie history.