By Tom Nix // 10.24.09

The movie that winds down The Brothers Bloom is almost totally different from the movie that begins it. Kicking out of the gate with a borderline precocious series of vignettes detailing the Brothers’ (Stephen, the older and Bloom, the younger) relatively rough childhood. Narrated by Ricky Jay this, naturally, is the time when they learn all about the con, and how it can change the lives of everyone involved.

Ever since they were young kids, The Brothers Bloom have running cons that fit one specific rule: Everything ends well when everyone gets what they want. Unfortunately, the spoils have been eluding the brothers for the last 25 years. Stephen, the mastermind, wants to create a con so elaborate and perfect that it becomes reality. Bloom, the one who plays the marks, simply wants an unwritten life. The last 25 years have consisted of being whomever his brother needs him to be.

And so the standard tale unfolds: There is to be one last con. The one that will get them both what they want. Stephen gets his story, Bloom, his life. The mark is Penelope (Rachel Weisz),  a beautiful, eccentric, and most importantly, wealthy 33-year-old living alone in her deceased parents estate in New Jersey. She is such a perfect match for Adrien Brody’s Bloom that its quite possible that she is simply one of is brother’s creations. And thus unfolds one of the most complicated narratives assembled. Who is playing whom? Is anyone playing anyone? Where does the plan end and happenstance begin?

It’s a wonderful conceit. It’s oddly refreshing to say that I’ve just watched a movie about criminals that’s as whimsical and beautiful as this one is. Despite Rian Johnson’s previous effort Brick (part of The Long Good Friday 004) being securely in the noir genre, his take on con artists (long a noir staple) is almost effervescent in the way it is portrayed. You see, despite the fact that Stephen and Bloom are in fact, taking their mark’s money, they are also giving them an adventure and an experience that they would have never otherwise attempted, let alone realized.

It’s this flipside view to the criminal genre that makes The Brothers Bloom such a fascinating film. The way Rian Johnson stages his scenes doesn’t hurt either. For a film that skirts around the noir genre at all costs, he seems to have picked up the directorial savvy of David Mamet. His dialogue is there for support only. Sometimes it gets caught up in its own cuteness, but there are some real gems in this script. What actually drives the story is the edit. It’s a lost art form nowadays. The art of editing is the one thing that separates film from any other form of media and communication. The fact that Rian Johnson so furiously supports is use in visual storytelling alone is a reason for us to furiously support his directing career. While he is able to draw performances out of his cast (Although, really, when your cast has Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Weisz in it, how hard can it be?) for the most part, the film starts to waver a little in the second and and nearly derails itself at the beginning of the third.

In a nutshell, the film feels like a Wes Anderson directed remake of House of Games – only without the rigid stylization or art-deco soundtrack. And in this case, instead of teaching someone about the long form con, The Brothers Bloom is about the cons we pull on ourselves every day and how to get out of that habit. It’s a movie that David Mamet would never, ever, make – shot and edited in the exact way that he would. Only with a little more explosions (courtesy Rinko Kikuchi’s Bang-Bang – a 180 from her dour and misunderstood turn in Babel), a little more wide open spaces, and a lot more cathartic fun. This film is a convoluted con caper that may be just a little too confusing at parts. There’s about 20 almost needless minutes sandwiched between the 2nd and 3rd acts, that could have made the film a little more breezy to get through.

This problem may be easily fixed by a second viewing. Despite its intentional complexity, the film feels like a more fleshed out version of the brainstorming plans the brother’s concoct. A series of idea bubbles connected by an endless number of lines. Everything doubtless has its purpose. Every shot, every edit, every line of dialogue no doubt has their role to play. It’s an almost impossible test of will to not get caught up in the caper that The Brothers Bloom tangles all around you.

8.6 out of 10

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by Tom Nix

1) Reservoir Dogs, 1994 dir. Quentin Tarantino

Let’s get the easy one out of the way, first. It’d be impossible to bring up the neo-noir movement without mentioning Quentin Tarantino. Before he more or less changed cinema with Pulp Fiction, Tarantino unleashed a hyper-violent, reference-laden, character-centric noir film, featuring characters that would not shut up.

From the discourse about tipping at restaurants to the overly long backstory Tim Roth’s Mister Orange tells, to the extraordinary double crosses – all of which have to be explained in monologue – Reservoir Dogs is something approaching a masterpiece. But, let’s be serious. Everyone who is reading this site has seen this movie. Everyone probably owns one of the sixteen different editions that came out on DVD or BluRay. I say use this as an opportunity to dust off this classic for another go-round. It’ll remind you of how great of a director Tarantino was. And then later this year you can pop in Inglourious Basterds to remind you how essential he still is.

2) House of Games, 1987 dir. David Mamet

After making his name as a supremely gifted wordsmith from his stage and screenplays, David Mamet was finally allowed to call the shots on his own film. Those of you who have had any interest in filmmaking as an art or profession would be remiss to not check out his book ‘On Directing Film,’ in which Mamet lays out his entire directing career in a breezy 128 pages. But, inside that brief volume lies a mastery of visual storytelling.

In his directorial debut, Mamet uses light and shadow and the art of the edit to tell his story with a direct intensity. His trademark rapid-fire dialogue is present here, but as the master he is, the dialogue does not tell us the story. It tells us the characters. It tells us the situations. It tells us the motives. Most importantly, he uses his characters’ language to pull the con on us as they pull it on each other. House of Games, like the unbelieveable Pick-Up on South Street before it, is more content to use the dialogue and shots as weapons rather than the bullet-fetish that makes up so much of the modern crime genre.

While I prefer his later con-man caper The Spanish Prisoner over his first feature, not even that twisty, turvy thrill ride gives us the insight that House of Games does.  The House in the title doesn’t refer to the physical place where people are parted with their posessions. The House is the Con, and you’ve just been had.

3) Brick, 2005 dir. Rian Johnson

Brick is an odd beast. One the surface, it seems like a bunch of kids reading Daschiell Hammett quotes. What it really is, however, is the debut of a real talent. Rian Johnson took everything he loved about the Noir genre and crammed it into a schoolyard romance rivalry. Very shortly after you adapt to some of the most hard boiled dialogue delivered in a great while, the “gimmick” of the high school setting fades rather quickly. These are real kids with real problems. And despite the fact that it all is dealt with in such a grim manner, nothing seems shoehorned.

Maybe this is almost totally due to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s unflinchingly brutal performance as Brendan, the hero/anti-hero of the story. His ex-girlfriend has ended up dead, and he intends to get to the bottom of it, no matter if he has to go through the roughest heavy, the most powerful druglord, and the steamiest women that his tiny town has to offer. All his scars will add up to the truth.

For a first time feature with a very minimal budget, Brick turns out to be a captivating and powerful film that displays exactly how tough growing up can be as filtered through the eyes of those who live it.

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By Tom Nix

Paul Bettany in "Gangster No. 1"

#1: Gangster No. 1 - 2000, dir. Paul McGuigan

Paul McGuigan (You know him from LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN, PUSH, and if you’re a girl, WICKER PARK) had only one previous film under his belt when he directed this turn of the century British Gangster Flick about a Kill For His Supper enforcer (Paul “ManGod” Bettany) hell-bent on becoming the top crimelord in town. The excesses and entanglements he finds his way into and out of are best left to the screen for explanation, but unlike other run-and-gun gangster movies, this one lets you in on a secret: How the mob is run. Sure, there are a lot of brilliant scenes of unbridled violence, but there is accountability on the other side. Basically, you take SNATCH and cram it with THE GODFATHER PART II and you have a general idea of what this flick manages to accomplish. This is a Cool Looking Men Posturing With Guns movie that, at the end of the day, means something.

Ben Kingsley as Don Logan in "Sexy Beast"

#2: Sexy Beast - 2000. dir. Jonathan Glazer

If GANGSTER NO. 1 is about how to succeed in the mob by killing a whole bunch of people, SEXY BEAST is how to get out of the mob while you’re still alive. Featuring the incredible cast of Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, and Ben Kingsley (giving THE performance), the flick is about one man’s very dangerous quest to simply live a life of not-crime. Normally calling it quits is an easy thing to do, but when Don Logan is your boss, quit becomes the ultimate four-letter-word. Even if you were to completely ignore the story, Winstone’s Val and Kingsely’s Logan alone make it better than a large portion of crime movies with all the twists and turns. The movie is also notable because it marks the first time a music video director, on his first go-round in narrative cinema, makes a good movie. Strike that. Makes a great movie. One that doesn’t rely on wacky visuals and erratic cutting. It relies on lingering, on doubt, on questions, on friendship, on betrayal, and on lots, and lots, of cursing. Enjoy!

The Editorial Staff would like to note we are sorry for lumping Patrick Swayze into this one, even in death no one should be associated with Troy Duffy (D-Bag, pictured left).

#3: Overnight - 2003, dir. Tony Montana and Brian Mark Smith

This movie deserves a special place in cinema for explicitly showing how one man’s arrogance and total lack of people skills transform him from overnight film savior to friendless, penniless, douchebag. Marvel as the man who eventually made THE BOONDOCK SAINTS, Troy Duffy, manages to take a $300,000 screenplay sale and a $15,000,000 budget to direct his very first feature and piss it away on his own ego. There isn’t any other way to sell this flick. It’s a chance to see a self-absorbed asshole get his. Something that sorely doesn’t happen very often on our planet. For those of you who have seen BOONDOCK, pop this flick in and watch your facehole start to angle upwards with every passing moment. It’s a fitting testament to a man, that, when handed the world, made it into a cherry bomb and forgot to throw it.

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