Share:                           
Permalink:       

DVD Review: THE BROTHERS BLOOM

Studio: Summit
Year: 2008
Cast: Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo, Rinko Kikuchi, Maximilian Schell, Robbie Coltrane, Ricky Jay, Zachary Gordon, Max Records, Andy Nyman, Noah Segan, Ram Bergman
Director: Rian Johnson
Release Date: September 29, 2009
Rating: PG-13 for violence, some sensuality and brief strong language
Run Time: 01h:53m:34s
Genre(s): suspense, comedy, rental only

"See, you've reached an unethical conclusion. You think you want out, but you don't. One last con." - Stephen Bloom (Mark Ruffalo)

Buy Now @ Amazon

A charming con man tale from the director of Brick revels in the globe-hopping world of the grifter, where the lure of one last con looms large and dangerous.

Highly recommended.

Movie Grade: A-

DVD Grade: B+

With The Brothers Bloom, writer/director Rian Johnson now has two feature films under his belt, and both reveal a filmmaker who seems to take great comfort in stories that are slathered in stylized oddness.

His high-school-noir-murder-mystery Brick was a real trip and a half, with Raymond Chandler-eseque dialogue spewing out of teenagers, enveloped in an eerie crime that was far from what it seemed. This time it's all about con men, specifically a pair of brothers with an almost secret language of their own who stage the old reliable "one last con". And if movies have taught us anything, that rarely goes as planned.

Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody) are the titular characters, and after a beautifully crafted introductory sequence showing their hardscrabble life as children (narrated by magician Ricky Jay in a thick, lyrical expository glob) the story jumps to them as adults, as they ready themselves for one final grift. Their target is the self-described "epileptic photographer" Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz), an obscenely wealthy recluse whose hobby is hobbies. As expected, the differences between what's a con and what's reality becomes a permanently fuzzy line until the film's final act.

But that's really just part of the overall experience, because Johnson continually relies on gorgeously framed shots filled with characters spouting dialogue that is quick-witted and clever, even though at its heart it is ridiculously far removed from reality. This is the kind of film that requires one to just allow the characters and story to unfurl with all of its fanciful whimsy, as even some of the more questionable bits (especially as the film reaches its climax) become especially hard to swallow.

But at that point you are either in the groove with Johnson's complicated heist and con or you've checked out well before. The performances from the three leads are snappy and quirky, as Ruffalo plays the tough-talking organizer, while Brody and Weisz get too close for comfort. Or is that just part of the big con? And just who is conning who?

There's also a nice set of supporting players, including Babel's Rinko Kikuchi who gets a fun role as the third partner in the brother's plans, playing the silent-but-deadly explosives expert Bang Bang, who gets one of the film's funniest lines (her only one) as things begin to go wrong. Robbie Coltrane shows up as a mysterious Belgian "fat man" who may or may not be part of scam, and in one of those scene-stealing moments Maximilian Schell plays the legendary eye-patched con man Diamond Dog, whose personal vendetta against the Blooms has a very complicated history. Or does it?

There's more than a hint of The Sting here, and I found this to be adorably built and layered with enough surprises to make it all interesting. NOTE: In a somewhat unusual marketing move, Summit is releasing The Brothers Bloom for rental only in the U.S., beginning September 29, 2009. A DVD-for-purchase is planned for sometime in 2010, at least as of this writing.

IMAGE/AUDIO
The Brothers Bloom has been issued in a smart-looking 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer; kudos to Summit on this one, as it is consistently a beauty, treating Johnson's stylized visuals well. Colors carry bright golds and deep browns with equal balance, and black levels also hold their own, especially during the film's final act.

Audio is presented in an English language Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, with a 5.1 Spanish dub also available. There is a pleasing sense of directional movement across the front channels, though this isn't the most aggressive mix when it comes to rear channel activity. On the upside, the occasional gunshot and/or explosions sound deep and loud. Optional subtitles are provided in English SDH and Spanish.

EXTRAS
There's a nice set of extras here, beginning with a low-key commentary from writer/director Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman. This is mostly Johnson's track, and rightly so, and he carefully and casually discusses everything from securing music rights to digital tricks to providing a proper nod to Rachel Weisz' card manipulation skills.

Also included is From Sketch To Celluloid, a three-part look at storyboards vs. finished scenes, with the first segment A Con is Born (07m:14s) focusing on the intro, using what Johnson refers to has his "original chicken scratch storyboards". The other bits are Hitting the Mark (02m:14s), which compares the bicycle crash scene and Buckle Up (02m:58s), which does the same for the highway shootout in the third act.

In Bloom: Behind the Scenes (15m:38s) is a block of assorted production footage, and a set of 20 deleted scenes (32m:34s) is available with an optional Rian Johnson commentary. An automated Image Gallery (03m:22s) that features both sketches and photos, wraps the supplements section.

Posted by: Rich Rosell - October 12, 2009, 11:31 am - DVD Review
Keywords: comedy, con men, suspense