"Charlie, When You Kill A Man, You End Up With His Father Or His Friends On Your Tail. It Usually Ends Badly..."
Acting as a cinematic vessel for his first work in the English language after the critical success of foreign language gems including Rust and Bone and the 2015 Palme D'or winner, Dheepan, French filmmaker, Jacques Audiard, brings to life the 2011 novel, The Sisters Brothers, by Canadian-born author, Patrick deWitt, for a "revisionist" Western tale which blends True Grit style black comedy with Hostiles levels of realism, one all held together by a simply stellar cast led by the brilliant one-two of Joaquin Phoenix (You Were Never Really Here) and John C. Reilly (Stan and Ollie) as the titular brothers, Charlie and Eli Sisters. Already classified as a box office bomb after making just over a quarter of its' respective budget, Audiard's latest is a prime example of a finely crafted move which deserves to be subject to a wider audience but due to the likes of the awful, Hellboy, among others taking up cinema screens due to their "blockbuster" appeal, The Sisters Brothers is unfortunately not likely to be seen by many at all, a real shame indeed considering how enjoyably dark, comedic and thoroughly engaging Audiard's first foray into the English language is, with an added Jake Gyllenhaal.
Working from a central narrative which primarily focuses on the blood-bound titular siblings, a pair of very differently minded yet infamous hit-men working under the command of Rutger Hauer's (Blade Runner) ruthless Commodore, Audiard's movie sees the bickering duo attempt to track down the whereabouts of Gyllenhaal's (Nightcrawler) John Morris, a fellow employee of the Commodore and private detective sent to locate Riz Ahmed's (Venom) Hermann Kermit Warm, after he is accused of theft. Whilst the movie does indeed follow particular genre conventions with hard-edged shootouts, campfire musings on the meaning of life and of course, alcohol-laden bar brawls, Audiard is undoubtedly much more interested in his central characters, with each performance wonderfully directed and expertly written, creating individuals rather than templates which make the drama much more emotionally engaging that I would ever have expected. With Phoenix blending that off-kilter comedic edge he has shown in the past in the likes of Inherent Vice with murderous sadism, his reckless ways are balanced by the lighter touch of Reilly, who amidst murdering people for money, comes across as the much more focused and rational of the pair, with certain set pieces in particular so well designed, you immediately recognise both the strengths and weaknesses of each without the need for exposition or clumsy dialogue. With superb supporting performances from Ahmed and Gyllenhaal, The Sisters Brothers is a tale of greed, redemption and brotherhood, and for a film which is being shown exactly nowhere in my local area, ironically Audiard's movie is one of the best of the year so far.
No comments:
Post a Comment