X
- 2018
- R
- Annapurna Distribution
- 2 h 2 m
- 2018
- R
- Annapurna Distribution
- 2 h 2 m
Summary Based on Patrick Dewitt's acclaimed novel of the same name, The Sisters Brothers follows two brothers - Eli and Charlie Sisters - who are hired to kill a prospector who has stolen from their boss. The story, a genre-hybrid with comedic elements, takes place in Oregon in 1851.
Directed By: Jacques Audiard
Written By: Thomas Bidegain, Patrick DeWitt, Jacques Audiard
- 2018
- R
- Annapurna Distribution
- 2 h 2 m
- 2018
- R
- Annapurna Distribution
- 2 h 2 m
The Sisters Brothers
78
7.2
Where to Watch
Summary Based on Patrick Dewitt's acclaimed novel of the same name, The Sisters Brothers follows two brothers - Eli and Charlie Sisters - who are hired to kill a prospector who has stolen from their boss. The story, a genre-hybrid with comedic elements, takes place in Oregon in 1851.
Directed By: Jacques Audiard
Written By: Thomas Bidegain, Patrick DeWitt, Jacques Audiard
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 44 Critic Reviews
78
91% Positive
40 Reviews
40 Reviews
9% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 44 Critic Reviews
78
91% Positive
40 Reviews
40 Reviews
9% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
In the end the joy of the movie is in watching these four very different characters interact.
The Sisters Brothers feels special. It has the painterly visuals of a classic film, but its lead characters are black-hatted villains whose road to redemption is mostly motivated by exhaustion rather than guilt. The story is grim and violent, but the brothers’ relationship is shot through with ramshackle humor, and the men they’re ultimately tasked with pursuing are portrayed as loving and idealistic—an utter rarity for this kind of story.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 141 User Ratings
7.2
72% Positive
102 Ratings
102 Ratings
24% Mixed
34 Ratings
34 Ratings
4% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 141 User Ratings
7.2
72% Positive
102 Ratings
102 Ratings
24% Mixed
34 Ratings
34 Ratings
4% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
Report
The Sisters Brothers is almost as aimless as its title characters, but it's worth the journey. John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix shine as wild west hitmen who are just smart enough to know they should be smarter, whose quest leads them in unexpected, funny, and surprisingly emotional directions.
Reilly, Phoenix, Gyllenhaal, and Ahmed – a murderers’ row of outstanding character actors who all moonlight as leading men – take the script’s raw materials (daddy issues, the trauma of being bullied, the civilizing effect of a toothbrush) and forge new bonds with a few words, a light look. The film treats their growing intimacy, in all its permutations, like an objet d’art, to be turned over and examined, delicately, from every angle. When they’re together, the film is electric.
This is a curious movie of both fury and quiet feeling, a take on the genre that’s occasionally explosive, but mostly, surprisingly pensive.
Individual scenes absorb, and the film lives and dies by its performances, but the macro problem seems to be that The Sisters Brothers can’t quite transcend its imitation atmosphere. Audiard and his cinematographer Benoît Debie nail the Western aesthetic, but neither can grasp the feeling. This wouldn’t be an issue if Audiard had postmodern aspirations, but The Sisters Brothers wants to be in conversation with the genre while still retaining a sincere, unwinking approach.
That's a pitch for a movie with endless potential. It could be great. The Sisters Brothers is merely fine. It requires us to invest so much in the characters. I did, for a while, until I got tired of them and was hungry for conflict.
Report
Why did I go to a movie that I felt I wouldn’t like only to have it cost me $111.92? In 70+ years of going to the movies there are probably 4 or 5 westerns that I liked and most of them made before the 1960s and, yet, here I found myself going to see “Sisters Brothers”.
The main thing prominent in most westerns is violence and it is here more visual than in most opening with a shoot out with bodies falling all over, barns being burnt and horses afire running.
The only thing missing are Indians and the scalping of ‘white men’ but we do get horses with men on them galloping across desert, mountains, going down from Oregon to California stopping in small dusty towns and a sophisticated hotel in San Francisco along with panning for gold in streams and rivers.
The Sisters brothers, Eli (John C. Reilly) and Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix) are hunting down the enemies of the Commodore (Rutger Hauer) while they are being hunted by John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal) who has picked up a foreigner Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed) also wanted by the Commodore but who has come up with a lethal liquid to find nuggets of gold in the aforementioned rivers and streams.
These are not silent men but men who talk, talk and then do some more talking even when killing, lead by Reilly, big brother to Phoenix while Gyllenhaal talks with an indefinable accent and Ahmed doesn’t seem to have any accent at all. There are 2 women who have lines in the screenplay by Jacques Audiard and Thomas Bidegain but mostly females are shown as townspeople in background shots. Jacques Audiard, a French director makes his English speaking movie debut here.
There are a couple of scenes of violence to people and animals that most people will either turn their head away from the screen or just shut their eyes.
The movie is 2 hours, seemingly longer, with too many ‘scenic’ shots and certainly too many ‘speeches’. There are also two men in Davy Crockett type hats who really added nothing to the movie except being there for another shootout and flowing blood.
“Sisters Brothers” has a clever title but that’s all the good I can say about it.
(Oh about that ticket price--getting my ticket I dropped my phone, cracked the glass and couldn’t get anything to download!)
Report
Les frèrots Sisters !… rien que le titre ressemble à un mauvais calembour à un demi-dollar troué… et les soeurettes Brothers, elle sont où alors ? hein ?!… avec le père Mother, je suppose… mais passons, car il ne s’agit pas d’un western comme les autres, c’est surtout un « western » psychologique, un peu trop lent et lymphatique pour être honnête : un film de Jacques Audiard donc !
L’incapable bien connu chez nous pour ses daubes à dormir debout se met à tourner pour Hollywood, maintenant ! mais où va le monde sans déconner… on y retrouve donc tout ce qu’il ne sait pas faire, c’est-à-dire… du cinéma. Notamment, les quelques scènes d’action, les fusillades égrénées ici et là auxquelles on ne pige que dalle : le montage ultra cut, parfois très move (en plus !), les plans trop resserrés… en bref, un vrai foutoir ! y compris lorsque ça ne tire pas, lors de l’incident dans la rivière, on capte putain de que dalle à ce qui peut bien se passer…
Jacques Audiard est un cave (son merveilleux papa doit se retourner dans sa tombe) qui ne sait pas y faire et même un stagiaire ferait mieux. Par ailleurs, l’histoire est un mélange de la petite maison dans la prairie (cf la fin, mon dieu !) et de deux tueurs professionnels et accessoirement de deux vrais connards qui devraient très logiquement finir entre quatre planches…
En outre, son agenda écolo est tout à fait surprenant et bien peu crédible… tout comme le type qu’ils doivent « retrouver », à savoir un indo-afghano-pakistanais au Far West… en 1851 ! ben voyons ! et la marmotte, elle emballe les balles dans le papier alu ? heureusement, le duo Phoenix-Reilly fonctionne très bien, la photographie est belle… mais c’est tout. Voilà donc une énième daube du fiston Audiard qui continue de décevoir, lamentablement.
Report
Production Company
Why Not Productions,
Page 114,
Annapurna Pictures,
France 2 Cinéma,
France 3 Cinéma,
Union Générale Cinématographique (UGC),
KNM,
Michael De Luca Productions,
Top Drawer Entertainment,
Apache Films,
Mobra Films,
Les Films du Fleuve,
Canal+,
Orange Cinéma Séries,
France Télévisions,
Atresmedia Cine,
Movistar+,
Wallimage,
Casa Kafka Pictures Movie Tax Shelter Empowered by Belfius,
Focus Features,
Meñakoz Films
Release Date Sep 21, 2018
Duration 2 h 2 m
Rating R
Tagline Brothers by blood. Sisters by name.
Awards
César Awards, France
• 4 Wins & 9 Nominations
Lumiere Awards, France
• 3 Wins & 4 Nominations
Almeria Western Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations
