brotherhood

Starring: Trevor Morgan, Jon Foster, Lou Taylor Pucci, Arlen Escarpeta

Synopsis:

Adam Buckley (Trevor Morgan) finds himself in the middle of a convenience store robbery, during his last night as a pledge for a college fraternity. When the initiation ritual goes horribly wrong, and every move proves disastrous, Adam is forced to confront new challenges that question whether or not he has the ability to step up and show strength as a leader of men and do the right thing.

Brotherhood reminds me of the movie Very Bad Things in the way that it portrays the story of a prank that goes disastrously wrong and spirals out of control in a never-ending series of twists and turns: Except Brotherhood is actually very good. I won't say too much about the plot as it will spoil the effect but Trevor Morgan's Buckley is taking part in a pledge to join a college fraternity. He is told, along with the rest of the pledges that he has to pull off a convenience store robbery. He's successful but a friend, Kevin (Lou Taylor Pucci) isn't so successful and catches a bullet in the shoulder, from the store clerk Mike. What follows is a race against time to get help for the wounded young man without drawing the attention of the police. Every decision subsequently made is like a series of bad hands in a game of Poker: Nothing the characters do seems to go their way.

Sure, this movie is low budget but never at any stage did I get reminded of that fact. The movie's pace is relentless, and such that I didn't have time to sit and cogitate over the remarkably stupid decisions some of the characters make. Because the majority of these guys are so unlikeable it's very easy to get taken in by the script; that they would make the decisions that they do. I actually found myself making excuses for some of them, like "They're young, easily led" - that type of thing. This is a group of alpha males seemingly competing to be the biggest idiot on campus. Adam proves to be outside of this, but his battle of wills, with Frank (Jon Foster) inevitable leads him exposed and vulnerable to the rest of the fraternity. Part of the tension in the movie is down to; will Adam do the right thing?

Arlen Escarpeta's character Mike plays a very important part in the progression of the plot. How he reacts to the fraternity during the course of the film largely impacts on some of the decisions made.

The bare basics of the plot; that a group of men go from one bad mistake to a catalogue of them, is nothing new but Canon makes it feel like it's the first time that you've seen this type of movie. The film isn't particularly deep but does dip into themes of friendship, peer pressure and strength of character. Whilst it isn't a comedy, the movie does include a natural black comedy, especially with the final dénouement which, whilst not surprising, holds an uncomfortable and tragic bit of black comedy.

There's realism in the proceedings too. Kevin's gunshot wound isn't played down. Reminding me of the more visceral scenes involving Mr Orange (Tim Roth) in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Kevin's agony is there to see. This isn't an action movie where the character is required to shrug off what is very painful, in reality. We feel for Kevin and the threat of death is very explicit - it has to be, to drive Adam into doing what he does. (I'm being cryptic and vague on purpose).

Canon does an exemplary job of twisting the tension as the movie progresses. The visual style is of the hand held camera type but it's controlled very well, without dizzying the audience unnecessarily. The acting is impressive and believable. The actors sell the fact that their characters are unpleasant and tick all the boxes for being racist, misogynistic ass-holes. The soundtrack matches the frenetic pacing of the movie and compliments it well.

Summary:

There are good reasons why Brotherhood won the Audience Award at both the SXSW and Dallas International Film Festivals 2010. The script is tight and believable, the direction fast and furious. It's a fun, if not, bleak ride that feels original in a landscape of remakes and reboots. It's well worth checking out. I look forward to seeing more from Will Canon in the future.

8 out of 10 (Wayfarer)

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