Four Brothers

An nice old lady called Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan), was gunned down in a corner store robbery. A very sad event because she was much loved by the community. She fostered children until they could be placed into permanent homes. She couldn't find homes for four of them, so she adopted them herself. There is Bobby (Mark Walberg), Angel (Tyrese Gibson), Jeremiah, (André Benjamin) and the youngest Jack (Garrett Hedlund).  They are all screw-ups according to the cops, however they are congressmen compared to what they would've been without Evelyn. ...Congressmen? Is that the word he really wanted? Oh well.

After some really cute scenes between the brothers they go out drinking to their mother's memories and someone tells them that it was a gang related shooting. Three of the brothers decided to investigate, while Jeremiah, wants nothing to do with it. Bobby, Angel and Jack, go into the lair of a gang member and demand to know who did the shooting. He says no one was there and the witness who saw it was lying. They hunt down the witness and discover it was a professional hit. 

After some more digging they discover who killed their mom and killed them back. They go snooping around one of the hit man's apartment and discover that it was the mob boss Victor Sweet (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who put the hit on their mom.

Sweet sends some gunmen after the bothers and Jack ends up dead in a really sad scene.

They want to kill him but don't know how, since he's a boss, of a freaking mob. But fortunately for them he treats his henchmen like crap, so they have no loyalty to him. So for four hundred thousand dollars they sell him out to the Mercer brothers.

After a wonderful scene involving so much police brutality, nothing can be pinned on the three brothers and they are released.

I was on the fence with this movie. I loved the interaction between the brothers because I found it really realistic and natural. The plot however made no sense to me. As far as I can tell, Evelyn got shot because Jeremiah owed Sweet money and Evelyn told a dirty cop. I think it was money, I'm not a hundred percent sure. How did Jeremiah get into debt with Sweet? Did I miss it? How could he think his mom's death had nothing to do with the debt he owed Sweet? What an idiot.

Why did Jack have to die? Man, was he dumb. You're in the middle of a gang war-type-thing and a gangster knocks on your door and throws a snowball in your face, and what do you do? Jump out and try to throw a snowball back! Jack! What they hell? You just discovered there are dirty cops and Sweet killed your mother and you're throwing snowballs? Maybe your brother should have spent less time teasing you about being gay and teaching the finer points in staying alive.

How did Sweet stay a crime boss? He was an idiot and a asshole. If I was his one of his henchmen I would've shot him years ago. I can't believe that everyone is so scared of him that they would eat food off the floor in the middle of a restaurant just because he said so.  I mean he wasn't that scary! He didn't even do anything himself, he had his loser henchmen do the dirty work.  I could not believe that he would still be in charge of a mob. No way. And, like so many other movies, if the bad guy isn't believable, the rest of the movie doesn't hold water.

What I really hate thought is that there are a ton of women in this movie and yet none of them had a single good role. Or even a good line for that matter. There were no women cops, no women gangsters, no women anything, except sex objects and mothers. That's it. They didn't even play poker! I love poker. That sucked.

At least the relationship between the brothers was really well done, or else the entire movie would've been unbearable.

Grade: 5.5/10