Singleton builds on his earlier inner-city dramas with “Four Brothers,” an in-your-face, violent crime story set on the mean streets of Detroit where apparently everyone struts around town packing a gun and the cops either can’t do anything about it or don’t really care.
While the movie revolves around a murder and the subsequent search for the killer, “Four Brothers” is actually as much a relationship piece as it is an action flick. The story focuses on four young men who grew up together and have formed a bond thicker than if they were brothers by birth. They fight, they hug it out, and they lean on one another to make it through difficult times.
The Mercer boys – Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), Angel (Tyrese Gibson), Jeremiah (Andre Benjamin), and Jack (Garrett Hedlund) – were the worst of the worst as kids. No one wanted them and only one woman with a heart of gold saw the goodness inside each, adopting the four and raising them by herself. When their adoptive mom is gunned down in a convenience store robbery, the Mercer men reunite to pay their respects and share their fond memories of the good-hearted woman who saved each of them from a life on the streets.
Together for the first time in years, the four play catch up while dealing with the loss of their parent. But even as they reconnect, their main objective is to find the truth behind their mom’s murder. As they search out the thugs and other lowlifes who might have an idea about what really went down, it begins to dawn on the group that there was more to their mother’s murder than meets the eye. Their investigation intensifies and using methods outside the law, it’s revealed their mother was actually the intended target of a murder-for-hire scheme.
Singleton doesn’t skimp on the violence and bloodshed as three of his four central characters pound heads, shoot up houses, and generally cause a lot of hate and discontent as they look to exact revenge against whoever killed their mother.
The effects are old-school and the lack of CGI is refreshing. The car crash sequence and bloody gun battles make your heart race – and that’s a good feeling. Singleton strives for and achieves a sense of realism throughout the film, from the cold and harsh colors used to portray the city’s underbelly to the crimson blood that flows after the gunfights, the look of “Four Brothers” is striking.
And then there’s the acting… Singleton’s ethnically mixed cast has good chemistry and their portrayal of brothers is believable. Leading the pack is Mark Wahlberg who seems to just keep getting better and better (we’re now way past the days when you need to reference the fact he was once known as Marky Mark). Wahlberg’s a strong, confident performer and really sells his character’s bravado. Equally terrific is Andre Benjamin. Should he decide to give up his musical career, he’ll find himself booked solid with acting roles. He’s that good.
At first I thought Garrett Hedlund ("Friday Night Lights") was thrown into the mix purely as a little eye candy to draw the younger female audience (as if Tyrese couldn’t do that on his own). But even though he’s only got a few roles under his belt, Hedlund’s actually a pretty darn good actor – and not just a pretty boy. He looks like a rock star but acts like a puppy dog around his older onscreen siblings, and it works.
Tyrese Gibson plays the ladies man and adds a little comic relief to the group. A frequent collaborator with director Singleton, Gibson’s handsome, can handle the action scenes, and is perfect as the 2nd or 3rd fiddle in this ensemble cast.
What didn’t work for me were 90% of the sequences with actress Fionnula Flanagan. Flanagan, who is a fine actress, plays the mom who gets murdered and we see her in flashback a few times. It doesn’t work and it’s so glaringly wrong for her to be inserted in two scenes that I considered not liking the movie as a whole because of those two specific shots. Also, the film’s final act is a huge letdown as the circumstances are too contrived and out of place, and they don’t logically connect with the previous storylines.
The film does an admirable job of stomping on a few cinematic racial stereotypes. The good guys aren’t all white; the bad guys aren’t all black. And while no one should look to “Four Brothers” as a message movie, it is a gritty, absorbing film that’s – for the most part - worth seeing.
GRADE: B-
"Four Brothers" was directed by John Singleton and is rated R for strong violence, pervasive language and some sexual content.
