The film starts off horribly and gets better but not by much. The only thing about this film that saved it was Kitano's excellent use of violence. The film constantly attempts to be an America indie. The movie is stupid but you can have some fun with it's stylized violence.

Takeshi falters as did Antonioni with Zabriskie Point, his American movie. There have been many instances of non-American directors learning to make successful American films but few have translated their personal visions on American soil with much integrity. One of the few exceptions was Leone with Once Upon a Time in the West but he was working with myth. Takeshi's story, which is set in contemporary L.A., has to be judged substantially on its understanding of the underworld of American crime; Takeshi, after all, is not just a hack churning out formulaic drivel but a noted auteur with ruthless insight into Japanese culture in his nihilistic crime-centered films. Granted, his Japanese films haven't been exactly realistic but the spirit felt true, and the inhibited, hierarchical world of japanese behavior well-suited Takeshi's minimalist formalism. In Brother Takeshi frames the more subtle and expressive American style of relationships within the Japanese mold and while the results are fascinating and peculiar, it's too far from reality to rise above absurdist comedy. But, Japanese ways are also misrepresented here. Obviously self-conscious of making a Yakuza film in America partly for American audience, Takeshi's presentation of Yakuza codes has the look of self-imposed exoticism. It's Takeshi looking at his Japan thru what he perceives might be thru American eyes. What was ruthlessly and efficiently portrayed in Takeshi's Japanese films might strike the viewer as somewhat inflated and turgid in Brother. Still, this is Takesh's most ambitious movie to date, an undertaking that took some degree of courage, vision, and daring. Sometimes one's not sure how much of this was meant in earnest or as parody. For example, smalltime 'gangsta' style hoodlums in LA becoming drugkingpins in suits overnight evoked the much discussed notion that lazy and stupid Americans should emulate the more organized and disciplined Japanese to regain economic predominance in the late 80s. Whatever its faults, the movie's bitter fatalism and tragic nihilism is pure Kitano. … Expand