“The Sisters Brothers”
“A pleasing, lovingly crafted Western from a surprising
source.”
The Hollywood Reporter
Film Review |
Venice 2018
By Todd McCarthy
9/2/2018
John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz
Ahmed star in Jacques Audiard's first English-language effort, a comic Western
about a pair of assassin brothers chasing a thieving prospector.
The jovially titled The Sisters Brothers would have felt
very much at home among the gorgeous, idiosyncratic revisionist Westerns of the
early 1970s. What this will mean to audiences 45 years on is another question.
This first English-language outing by the ever-adventurous French director
Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) is a connoisseur’s delight, as it's
boisterously acted and detailed down to its last bit of shirt stitching. A
sterling cast, led by John C. Reilly in the sort of starring role he’s been
waiting for his whole career, will give this a certain profile in specialized
release and down the line in home viewing venues.
As are many classic Westerns, this is a tale of pursuit
and patience involving a long journey and threats known and unknown. There will
also be blood, of course, vast changes of fortune and the decisive matters of
chance, daring and luck.
The Sisters Brothers possesses all of the above, in
addition to the curiosity of a filmmaker who has clearly taken great relish in
exploring a country that is both familiar (via countless movies) and now quite
distant.
For the genre faithful, it’s almost always rewarding to
see the classic form being tackled by an interested outsider. Audiard, working
from the well-regarded 2011 novel by Canadian author Patrick deWitt, keeps
things interesting all the way by virtue of his clear desire to make everything
here feel built from scratch. Much as with such 1970s Western refreshers as
McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Hired Hand and Bad Company, you can feel the
filmmaker’s zeal to make contact with the real Old West through the obligatory
mythic passageway provided by the cinema. These films never drew a substantial
public, and the same will likely be true again here, even as there are many
pleasures to be had.
As with most Westerns, the story is simple: A big shot
named The Commodor (Rutger Hauer) wants a foreign outsider prospector by the
name of Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed) to be killed for stealing. To this end
he engages a brother assassin act by the unlikely name of Eli and Charlie
Sisters (Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix).
Alert to the danger, Warm takes on protection in the form
of lawman/detective John Morris (Jake Gyllenhal), setting off a pursuit of
untold miles and time. This set-up naturally provides excuses to cover vast
tracts of unspoiled land, just what any Western needs, as the tale moves from
heavily wooded Oregon down along the California coast to San Francisco in high
Gold Rush dudgeon.
The two parties are a study in contrasts. Warm is
something seemingly new in Westerns, a Middle Eastern prospector, a dentist by
profession, while Gyllenhaal’s lawman is unusually eloquent, perhaps a victim
of over-education. The Sisters boys are of a notably lower status, rougher and
gruffer but not without a rollicking appeal.
The film works up an only moderate sense of momentum over
the first hour at least, with the greatest pleasures emanating from the variety
of landscapes (Spanish and Romanian locations pass impressively as the Far
West) and the feints and jabs of the four men, both in the direction of
opponents and one another. Unlike many Westerns of yore, these are not men of
few words; they’re idiosyncratic, even highly articulate at times, which goes
hand in hand with the invigorating stores of intelligence with which the
writers have endowed the four men.
It’s hard to tell how long the pursuit goes on, but at
the film’s half-way point the Sisters arrive at the Pacific (reminding at one
point of the unforgettable Oceanside interlude in One-Eyed Jacks), and shortly
thereafter at San Francisco, in the instant splendor and madness of its Gold
Rush heyday. “This place is Babylon,” one of the brothers exclaims, as they
indulge in a fancy hotel and get a load of flush toilets and gold trimmed
restaurants.
It’s during this spell by the Bay that the Sisters, and
the film, take a fateful turn, as Eli proposes ditching the Commodore, thinking
they can do better on their own. “We have a chance to get out,” he insists to
his unconvinced brother, creating a rift that leads the tale to its inevitable
rendezvous with violence. What eventually comes to pass is both unsettling and,
finally, quite satisfying.
Reilly has the most expansive character here and he makes
it his own, breathing deep stores of boisterous life into him. Phoenix provides
a willing, if less assertive younger brother accomplice who is obliged by birth
to be a second banana, while Gyllenhal and Ahmed are attractive but rather less
attention-grabbing saddle mates.
Physically, the film is a fine specimen, with production
designer Michel Barthelemy and costume designer Milena Canonero providing
unusually rich and detailed contributions. Alexandre Desplat’s score is icing
on the cake.
Opens in U.S.A.: September 21, 2018
Les frères Sisters – French title
The Sisters Brothers – U.S.A. title
Братья Систерс – Russian title
The Sisters Brothers – English title
A 2017 French, Belgium, Romanian, Spanish, U.S.A.
co-production [Page 114, Why Not
Productions (Paris), Mobra Film (Bucharest), Annapurna Pictures, Michael De
Luca Productions (Hollywood)]
Producers: Chelsea Barnard, Tudor Reu, Sammy Scher,
Pascal Caucheteux, Gregoire Sorlat, Michel Merkt, Megan Ellison, Michael De
Luca, Alison Dickey, John C. Reilly
Director: Jacques Audiard
Story: The Sisters
Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
Screenplay: Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain
Cinematography: Benoit Debie [color]
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Running time: 121 minutes
Cast:
Charlie Sisters - Joaquin
Phoenix (Joaquin Bottom)
Eli Sisters - John C. Reilly
Eli Sisters - John C. Reilly
Morris - Jake
Gyllenhaal
Hermann Kermit Warm - Riz Ahmed
Commodore – Rutger Hauer
Mrs. Sisters – Carol Kane
The Father – Ian Reddington
Mayfield – Rebecca Root
Young Charlie Sisters - Theo Exarchopoulos
Young Eli Sisters – Aldo Maland
Doctor Crane – Hugo Dillon
Indian - Cédric Charpentier
Quarrelsome Saloon Guy – Creed Bratton
Head Trapper - Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson
Encampment attackers – Duncan Lacroix, Nick Cornwall
Crane’s daughter – Lexie Benbow-Hart
Storekeeper Philip Rosch
Jacksonville housekeeper – Sean Duggan
Mayfield barman – Raymond Waring
Mayfield storekeeper – Gerard Cooke
Horse dealer – Eric Colvin
Saloon bartender – Raynor van de Water
Gold prospector – Jose M. Pinilla
Rich Woman in Golden Peral
Stunt coordinators - Rasvan Puiu (Razvan Puiu), Boris
Martinez
Assistant stun coordinator: Yves Girard
Stunts: Mehrzad Agi-Kermani (Mehrzad Asgi-Kermani), Niculae
Cristian (Niculae Cristian Bogdan), Roberto Bonacini, Paul Budeanu, Haratiu
Carpiuc, Cédric Charpentier, George Chirita, Adrian Cojosaru, Viscreanu
Constantin, Bogdan Constantinescu, Stefan Costache, Ionut Cotruta, Gore Eduard,
Cornel Florescu, Eduardo Gago Muñoz, Ignacio Herráez, Mihai Iliescu, Catalin Mancafa, Petre Marin, Philippe Morel,
Adrian Nita, Abian Padrón, Cosmin Padureanu, Elena Raducanu, Lucian Raducanu, Valentin
Raileanu, Juan José Rodríguez, Olivier Schneider, Sebastien Soudais, Valeriu
Tomescu, Fanel Ursu, Daniel Visan, Kaloian Vodenicharov
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