Four Brothers

I didn't really go into 4 Brothers with high expectations. I expected a violent action movie staring Mark Wahlberg... I wasn't really surprised with the result. 

4 Brothers follows the story of exactly what you think... 4 brothers. 4 men who grew up in Detroit after they were adopted by a woman named Evelyn Mercer. The four brothers all have a rough background but it is stated that compared to what they would have been without Evelyn, it would have been much worse. The four brothers are brought back to Detroit after their mother is murdered in a robbery.

As you can see from above, these four brothers are all different. Some are white, some are black. And that's a big deal!... for about two scenes. The fact that these four are not the same skin color is actually not a big deal in this movie. On one end that really works for the movie because these four work as brothers.

Mark Wahlberg plays the oldest brother, Bobby Mercer. I like Mark Wahlberg. He does a lot of action movies, he's done a lot of movies that are okay but high action. He's also done some really good movies... just not as many as I'd like. The other actors are similar situations except no really good movies to put on their list. Tyrese Gibson plays Angel, the brother that joined the military, André Benjamin, Jeremiah the businessman, and a young Garrett Hedlund, the rocker Jack, who I haven't been convinced is that great of an actor. Overall, the four work well together but its a on par group. Not brilliant, just on par. 

I watched the movie last weekend and in short, I enjoyed it. I liked Mark Wahlberg, I enjoyed the chemistry between the brothers and it was a fun violent gangster movie. 

...But I wanted more. 

I feel like there were a lot of good angles they could have taken this story line but they were constricted by two hours. Like I said before, there wasn't much development with the fact that these four men were brothers and had a different skin color. It wasn't bad that they didn't focus too much on race in the movie but it wouldn't have been a bad direction to go. And thats just the beginning of the things Four Brothers kind of missed out on. 

And then I watched the trailer

I don't know about anybody else, but I just got a feeling of an HBO drama from that trailer. Though I'm not ecstatic about the cast, I thought they worked well together and if put into a TV series, I think this could actually be a good concept. 

I know too many movies that were turned into TV shows and a lot of them are bad choices. This is a show I think would actually work better as a TV show. 

So that's Four Brothers. A movie that delivers what it needs to and not much else. I wish there was more to it and unfortunately there won't be a chance to develop this story. 

Guess I'll have to just watch The Wire...

So have you seen Four Brothers? Do you like Mark Wahlberg? Do you like his movies? Comment below let me know!