With Brothers, based on the 2004 Danish film, Brodre, director Jim Sheridan has crafted a potent domestic drama with powerhouse performance from its three leads and supporting cast. Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman and Jake Gyllenhaal  all give Oscar worthy performances and are the reason the movie is as good as it is. In the hands of a lesser cast, the film would’ve easily wandered into pure soap opery, melodrama, but Brothers avoids that due to the empathy you feel for the main characters due to the nuanced performances of the talented cast. 

At times the film acts as a thriller and war movie, but at its core, Brothers is really a family drama about the way the hell of war affects soldiers and their families. Maguire plays Sam Cahill, a marine who is about to embark on his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan. He is the “good” son, serving his country and supporting his wife and two young daughters. Gyllenhaal plays Tommy, Sam’s loser brother and black sheep of the military Cahill family. He is released from prison for robbing a bank days before Sam is set to ship off again. Although completely different, Sam and Tommy do get along quite well but their ex-marine father Hank (Sam Shepard) eyes Tommy with disgust at all times. Scarred by his stint in the Vietnam War,  Hank took it out on his family causing one son to honor him and follow in his footsteps and the other screaming in the opposite direction.

Sam is captured in Afghanistan by the Taliban and is presumed dead. While being held prisoner he is subjected to all forms of torture and needless to say when he returns home after a long absence, he is not quite himself. While he’s gone (and assumed dead), Tommy comforts Sam’s wife, Grace (Natalie Portman) and kids, trying to fill the large void left by Sam and in turn begins to live up to his true potential. Things start out innocently enough, but soon Tommy and Grace develop a deep affection for one another. Soon after,  Sam returns home, emotionally scarred and mentally unbalanced from his ordeal. Seeing the way his wife and brother interact, Sam becomes increasingly more and more paranoid and eventually flips out.

Director Jim Sheridan has done an outstanding job of developing the characters and getting the very most out of his cast. Maguire gives perhaps the best performance of his career to date and really deserves an Oscar nod for his work. He does more with his vacant stare than most actors can do with a full page monologue. His freak out during the tense climax of the film had me riveted. Maguire truly gives a tour-de-force performance here. Gyllenhaal and Portman have less showy roles than Maguire but both give incredibly solid performance. Gyllenhaal is quite believable as Tommy transforms from a drunken loser to a responsible caregiver and Portman has a quiet strength as the mother trying to keep it together for her family while dying on the inside. 

The acting in this film is so extraordinary that it is impossible not to care for the characters and become wrapped up in their lives. In fact at the screening I attended, during the dramatic climax of the film a woman sitting two rows behind me was sobbing her eyes out, shouting (LOUDLY) at the screen.
“Oh no! Oh God no! Please no!” over and over. Given she was probably two nuts shy of an acorn tree, but still she was so invested in these characters and their fates you would think they were her close friends or family. That my friends are the hallmark of a powerful film experience. 

To sum it up, Brothers is a potent domestic drama that will stay with you long after you leave the theatre. Even if this film isn’t your cup of tea, the performances are worth the price of admission alone.