Four Brothers Bathroom Scene

Four Brothers Bathroom Scene

Four Brothers

Singleton's Motown tale receives a chilly reception from our Detroit-native reviewer.

Director John Singleton burst onto the scene right out of film school in 1991 with his first feature film Boyz n the Hood, which garnered him a Best Director Oscar nomination at the tender age of 24. His ensuing resume has been spotty, including passable matinee efforts like his remake of Shaft and the pitiful 2 Fast 2 Furious, the latter of which was a snoozer that suffered from a distinct started with a lack of (Vin) Diesel power.But his latest effort finds him leaving the sunny mean streets of South Central Los Angeles for the snowy mean streets of America's go-to movie wasteland, Detroit, for the muddled urban Western/revenge flick Four Brothers.

After their sweet-yet-stern adoptive mother Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan) is gunned down during a party store robbery, her four foster children reconvene in their boyhood home to mourn and get some big payback. Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), the oldest, has a spotty legal past and spearheads the posse; brother Angel (Tyrese Gibson) was in the Marines; baby Jack (Garrett Hedlund) has been a small-time punk rocker; and Jeremiah (Andre Benjamin), the only brother to stay in town, has a wife, two kids and a business redeveloping factory buildings into luxury lofts.Using vigilante strong-arm tactics, the brothers locate the triggermen and coldly execute them following the film's relatively slow start. With another hour to fill, the half-baked reasons why their mother was killed are uncovered; subsequently, we meet the cruel gangster Victor Sweet (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who apparently has control over the Detroit city council and half of the police force. While it's bad enough that this kingpin isn't revealed until the halfway point, the way he is written makes it hard to square his low-rent thug behavior with his far-reaching power.

The movie's British screenwriters seem to have learned everything they know about crime-infested American cities from other movies. Despite some good action - including a harrowing car chase an armed assault sequence -the clichéd and slapdash script relies on too many convenient breaks, unsurprising twists and cheap misdirection tactics to advance the clunky plot.Guns are waved in crowded public places with impunity, Angel's girlfriend Sofi (Sofia Vergara) is a stereotypically-shrill Latina harridan, and nearly every scene captures these supposedly loving brothers as they harrass Jack with vile, gay-baiting comments. One credulity-shredding scene takes place in the family bathroom, where three of the brothers try to set a record for the most things that would never happen in real life in one scene.

It's difficult to sympathize with the brothers when they're able to easily kill without remorse - not to mention the fact that the killers' early deaths led me to believe that maybe they killed the wrong people. While that would have been an intriguing twist, it's perhaps too much to hope for that Singleton and his writers would have been thinking of Unforgiven as a point of reference.With little on the page in the way of a character, Wahlberg delivers a one-note performance to match the one-note writing; Gibson shows that his performance in 2 Fast 2 Furious was no fluke (take that as you will); and the appealing Benjamin (also known as Outkast's Andre 3000), seems tentative as the one brother who wants little to do with the sordid business of revenge. Even the usually reliable Terrence Howard (Crash, Hustle & Flow) can't do much with his Basil Exposition role as a police detective who grew up with the brothers.

As a Detroit native, I'm always amused by how inaccurately Motown is portrayed in films; Hollywood routinely makes errors that would seldom happen with films set in New York or Los Angeles. Shot mostly in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, they do a passable job of recreating the seamier neighborhoods and inserting local references into the dialogue. But they also locate the opening murder scene on a non-existent street in an enclave of Highland Park, make it look like you can carry guns into our casinos, and most laughably set the climatic scene on a frozen lake - presumably Lake St. Clair - when there is no way anyone would drive a large SUV onto the water just after Thanksgiving. (There aren't many hockey rinks in the 'hood either.) The vintage Motown soul soundtrack is a nice change of pace from the tedious hip-hop singles you'd typically expect.On his commentary Singleton states that he wanted to make an modern Western in an urban setting, and a "snow picture" - a movie filmed in blustery winter outside of his native California. But the results show that perhaps he should have stayed warm; and the best revenge audience can take on Four Brothers would be to skip it.Score: 5 out of 10
The VideoThe 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer is quite nice with excellent detail, especially in details like the fine knits of sweaters, without too many edge-enhancement artifacts. The colors of the digital intermediate process are rich and free of noise and smearing. Black levels are solid and the shadow detail is very good, though the color-timing does verge on going solid in detail when rendering dark-on-dark clothing.Score: 9 out of 10

Languages and AudioAudio choices are English and French Dolby 5.1 Surround and 2.0 with subtitles in English and Spanish. My initial impressions were that the audio was confined to the front of the soundstage with very little surround activity, but as the movie played on, more back channel activity was evident, with excellent positional movement all around.Dialogue is generally clear with a few exceptions and the mix is properly balanced between the gunshots, talking and vintage Motown soundtrack. A couple of instances of distortion were noted, but they were isolated. The subwoofer doesn't have much to do except for one scene where rap music plays on the soundtrack.Score: 8 out of 10

Packaging and ExtrasThe disc comes in a standard keep case with those annoying latches and no insert. The opening previews can be skipped by hitting the Menu button.The feature-length commentary by Singleton is a mostly dull affair with minimal detail to reward the investment of time. He mentions the various Western themes he was trying to inject, and does acknowledge that that Sofi may come off as the stereotypical crazy Latina chick; but he defends the portrayal as appropriate based on the Latina women he's dated (get thine commentary to a therapist!). Additionally, before the final showdown he describes the challenging location as "the way they get rid of you in Detroit," which came as news to me. (I can't guess how they get rid of people in South Central.)

The Look of Four Brothers (10:05) discusses the convergence of cinematography, art direction and costume design in creating the film's look.Crafting Four Brothers (10:54) has co-writers Paul Lovett and David Elliot discussing their development of the script and how the action scenes were specifically laid out on the page.Behind the Brotherhood (9:29) has interviews with the cast about their characters and what Singleton saw in them and why he cast them. The fact that three-quarters of them come from the music business is also remarked upon.Mercer House Shootout (4:16) shows the hundreds of bullet hits that were rigged for the film's biggest action scene, and documents how it was shot both on location and on a soundstage.

There are nine Deleted Scenes totaling 11:24 with a Play All option presented in muddy non-anamorphic widescreen and stereo sound. None of them are missed, and one has even more of the tedious gay-baiting that was already overabundant in the film. There is also a howler of a line about small crowds at a Detroit Pistons game, which only someone with no clue about Detroit sports fan loyalty would try to pass off. (People still pay to see the perpetually disappointing Lions, for crying out loud!)Score: 6 out of 10

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Four Brothers Bathroom Scene

Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/2006/01/26/four-brothers