Brothers Beyond
Despite
falling somewhat short, The Brothers offers hope of life after romantic
comedy.
It's
a scenario we're all familiar with by now: young single guys in search of hot
babes, firing one-liners at each other, making pop-cultural references ad
nauseam, and ultimately finding out that women are somewhat less shallow than
they've been led to believe. At least, it's a scenario you know if you go to
the movies frequently and choose to see the unadventurous romantic comedy that
reinforces gender stereotypes for the sake of a few cheap chuckles. What you
don't see in those movies is what happens next: How does
the newly wiser man hang on to the dream girl, and what sort of compromises
must be made? And what about that smart-ass best friend who served as comic
relief through the entire story -- will he always be happy to be the shallow
loner?
The biggest strength of the new
movie The Brothers is that it picks up at this point, where most
other romantic comedies leave off. Here we have four single guys approaching 30
who, rather than go off and do something crazy to postpone maturity, actually
attempt to embrace the concept. The foursome, known to the women in their lives
as the Brothers, consists of Jackson (Morris Chestnut, of The Best Man),
whose fear of commitment has landed him in therapy to deal with a recurring
matrimonial nightmare; Terry (daytime soap star Shemar Moore), a reformed
man-about-town about to be married to a woman he's known for only two months;
Derrick (D.L. Hughley), the only one of the bunch who's already tied the knot
-- hastily, as it turns out; and Brian (Bill Bellamy), an attorney who fills
the traditional wisecracking, womanizing best friend role (and is implicitly
less happy as a result, which makes a refreshing change).
Terry's impending nuptials are
what kick off the major soul-searching that concerns much of the film. Jackson
decides to seek out real commitment, only to hop almost immediately into bed
with hot young photographer Denise (Gabrielle Union, who played Kirsten Dunst's
cheerleader rival in Bring It On), although she's insightful enough to
get him to open up emotionally. Brian, who is being stalked and threatened by
at least two of his exes, decides to stop dating black women (whom he decries
as too often being single moms on welfare: "It's like they're giving out
government cheese sandwiches with fake hair and babies") and picks up a
glamorous white karate instructor who waits on him hand and foot in a manner
that no "sista" will. Derrick, who proudly points to his wife as an
example of how mature and committed he is, promptly watches his marriage
threaten to fall apart over his wife's refusal to give him blow jobs, despite
his willingness to get oral with her (thus shattering the stereotype that black
men just don't do that, undoubtedly much to the relief of women everywhere).
Implicit in the film, but
thankfully not bludgeoned home too directly, is the notion that these men fear
serious romantic attachments because their fathers were absent from their
lives. Only Jackson's dad (Clifton Powell) appears on-screen, and he is a
philanderer who has a potent love-hate relationship with his strong-willed ex
(Jenifer Lewis), as well as a brief romantic past with Denise that threatens to
destroy her current relationship with Jackson. Terry's parents are simply never
seen; Derrick's father is deceased, and his mother is in the grip of senility,
while Brian's single mom can't even bring herself to touch either one of her
sons.
There are many things to like
about The Brothers beyond its depiction of men who actually want
to grow up (and this is a cinematic step forward for all men, black or
otherwise): It depicts all of its characters as fully rounded human beings
without shying away from their less pleasant thoughts (Jackson's sister
insisting that white men have "all the equipment and twice the cash,"
or Derrick referring to a well-built romantic rival as "Amistad"), it
differs from many recent films aimed at black audiences by not featuring a
single scene that makes the movie feel like a commercial for its own
soundtrack, and it's very believable, with the exception of one or two
contrivances required to provide the film with both a significant second-act
crisis and an ending.
Still, it isn't actually as good
as it could be: Maybe real life isn't entertaining enough for us to watch. Or
maybe first-time director Gary Hardwick needs more experience behind the camera
to develop a visual style beyond the rather flat, TV look shown here. And a
little more sizzle couldn't hurt, either: Despite an R rating for strong sexual
content and language, it's all talk. There may be much bed hopping, but the
most skin we see is represented by a hooker in a G-string. Guys being what we
are, if you're gonna feed us images of maturity, you have to lure us in with a
little more than that.
The movie is perhaps most
successful as a preview of greater things to come from both D.L. Hughley and
Gabrielle Union.