Brothers

Directed by Jim Sheridan

(R)

**

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A family is torn apart after a brother returns from Iraq.

The war drama Brothers has good intentions, said Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News. In this remake of a 2004 Danish film, Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire play brothers: Tommy (Gyllenhaal), a ne’er-do-well ex-con, and Sam (Maguire), a steadfast Marine married to his high school sweetheart (Natalie Portman). When Sam sets off for his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan, a terrible misunderstanding temporarily leads the family to presume he is dead. Brothers attempts to explore the toll of war on the home front, but director Jim Sheridan and screenwriter David Benioff mire the film in melodrama. The characters are “more shadows and ideas than flesh and blood,” said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. Despite some fine moments, the acting lacks a “sense of rootedness” that would give “ballast to the film’s intense emotions.” When Sheridan stops being heavy-handed, he is capable of subtle insights, said Ramin Setoodeh in Newsweek. At a family dinner, or during a child’s birthday party, we see that “the most difficult fights aren’t always on the battlefield.”