Movie Review - Brothers - Bone Crunching Affair

Rating: ***1/2

Oh, that sound of bones being crunched, men getting into deadly grunts and beastly bodies falling off with a loud thud - This is what the core of Brothers is. Yes, all of that is in the second half of the film with the first primarily acting as a prelude for what would follow. However, once the stage is set for the MMA action to begin, what with a wonderful training sequence setting the stage, there is no looking back in Brothers.

That said, the entire first half is basically a looking back exercise that goes on, and on and on. You get it that this family has issues. In fact the context is set beautifully, especially in that powerful scene where Jackie Shroff comes to the house of Akshay Kumar and a soft act (when he sees his daughter in law Jacqueline Fernandez and grand daughter for the first time) is immediately followed by a volatile one (when he, Sidharth Malhotra and Akshay get into a verbal and physical dual). However, you hunt for many more such sequences which surprising come only on and off. In an emotional affair like this, a better handle could have been adopted by Karan Malhotra. However, just like his earlier remake Agneepath, he misses the emotional cue in some of the most important junctures, as a result of which you don't quite care much for the characters.

What keeps your attention alive is the fact that this is a MMA film and since there is a huge promise around this for the second half, you get through the first half and even ignore the interval point which is just about okay. Thankfully, the turnaround takes place moments after the break and what follows from here is sheer energy, excitement and euphoria which makes Brothers an altogether different film. Suddenly, you get an impression of a big film unfolding in front of you and the one hour from this point on passes by in a jiffy, especially with great help from a superb background score (Ajay-Atul).

Karan, the fighters and the team of technicians ensure that there is no stopping the action sequences that unfold. The stage is set, literally so, with Kiran Kumar (as the entrepreneur who brings MMA to India) and Raj Zutshi (in a rare positive and a non-hamming role while playing a commentator) take care of keeping the context alive through the proceedings. They do help in breaking the monotony of the action sequences in the ring, hence keeping you excited everytime a new fighter gets in the ring.

Meanwhile, the best is reserved for the end when the emotional quotient makes a comeback. Each of the three actors, whether it is Akshay, Jackie or Sidharth, delivers a tearjerker performance even when they are in and around the ring, something that gives a well rounded culmination to Brothers. This is where the film truly scores and only makes you wonder further that if only the first half was curtailed by 30 minutes, proceedings kept crisp, and drama even more intense, Brothers would have been engaging right through.

Still, the fact cannot be denied that Brothers is a new experience for the Indian audience, especially the second half which is a one hour long series of action sequences. This, coupled with yet another subtle act of Akshay, a sensitive performance by Shroff Sr. and those deadly punches by Sidharth, are reasons good enough to give this one a dekko at the big screen.