Brothers, The

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Passionate and saucy comedy.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

A politically incorrect but often hilarious jam session, in which men and women trade insults like musical licks.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie's a mixed bag, but worth seeing for the good stuff, which is a lesson in how productive it can be to allow characters to say what they might actually say.

USA Today Mike Clark

The pace is fast, many of the performers are attractive, and even the end-credits montage is zippier than usual.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A lively, affectionate and well-acted romantic comedy, takes a raunchy look at relationships from the black male perspective.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

What saves the film is the charm and earthy humor the actors wring from the spectacle of these four guys getting an early jump on their midlife crises.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Overall, The Brothers is glossy fun, but it should have given us more ideas and energy.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A feeling man's buddy story that's user-friendly to men and women alike.

Film.com Robert Horton

Hughley and Jones have an explosively comic chemistry together; her kooky, open-faced looks are a counterpoint to his whipcrack improvisations.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The psychological and psychoanalytical probes into sexual and emotional problems keep this reasonably lively.

San Francisco Chronicle Wesley Morris

Less like watching a movie than it is like being accosted by one.

Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart

While all of the actors are excellent, we sat up whenever Gabrielle Union walked on screen. As the ever-sensible woman who disrupts Jackson's bachelorhood, she projects the pluck, gravitas and beauty of a younger Alfre Woodard.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

No matter how quotable the one-liners, the movie remains a far stretch from truth or insight.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Basically a Lifetime movie that somehow found its way into theaters.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The cast is strong and work together flawlessly, and romantic comedies that take an unabashedly male perspective without being relentlessly vulgar or misogynistic are rare indeed.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A prime reason to see this, if you don't mind some really screechy acting by some of the supporting players and insipid metaphors for love and commitment, is its parade of fine flesh, both male and female.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Darts nervously between soap opera and sitcom, rarely blending them in a way that lets the two genres enhance each other.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's an admirable, if clunky, attempt, and though it never quite jels in the way that, say, "Waiting to Exhale" did, it's good to know someone's making the effort to portray black urban males as something other than criminals or crime-fighters.

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

If it registers at all, it'll likely be more because of the fuckability of Morris Chestnut -- a star waiting for a worthy film -- than any insights or memorable moments from the movie itself.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

The movie is perhaps most successful as a preview of greater things to come from both Hughley and Union.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

As each male-female relationship works itself out in ways either contrived or predictable, here's betting you wind up more disappointed than enlightened.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

An epidemic of solipsism breaks out among four lifelong African American friends when one of them announces his impending nuptials. Cringe-inducing slapstick jockeys for screen time with undermotivated high-volume confrontation.

Variety Dennis Harvey

Pic's complete lack of cinematic verve, along with bland tech work, do much to drain the juice out of what should have been a fierce, fun battle of the sexes.