Best Mood to Walk In With: Awake
Don't See This Movie If: You want a super fast paced, modern heist movie like Ocean's 11
I heard good things about this movie and was a little disappointed. Although I'm more of an action movie lover than a heist genre follower, I do appreciate a good twist ending. However, The Brothers Bloom did not quite meet expectations.
Now don't get me wrong, it was a decent movie, but you definitely need to enjoy heist movies to really get into this film. What I did really like about The Brothers Bloom is the beautiful cinematography and the kickback to older films. This movie definitely had a certain air of glamor that faded when stars like Grace Kelly, Humphrey Bogart, and Ingrid Bergman exited Hollywood. As he always does, Adrien Brody resurrected that lost art of je ne sais quoi, though his performance overall was relatively flat and uninteresting. Although I am a big Brody fan, I just could not get into his character of Bloom. Maybe it's that I've seen him play the brooding, soul searcher one too many times, but at the end of the movie I just did not care what happened to Bloom.
I felt similarly about Mark Ruffalo's character of Stephen, the other brother. Ruffalo's normal easy charm was buried under a too ambitious script that made it hard to understand what his character's motivation was to live the lifestyle of a conman. Although Rachel Weisz added some funny moments to the movie as Penelope, overall her character just made me feel awkward and I didn't buy into why anyone would fall in love with Penelope.
Rinko Kikuchi who was Oscar-nominated for her role in Babel a few years ago, again plays a silent character. Although in Babel she was a deaf mute, in The Brothers Bloom she is just supposed to be this mysterious jack of all trades. If the actors surrounding her were more effective, I would have enjoyed her more, but ultimately she was just another strange character in a solidly average film.
Keep Your Eyes Closed For: The super awkward scene in the train with Rachel Weisz and Adrien Brody...you'll know what I'm talking about.
Keep Your Eyes Open For: I thought the card trick that Rachel Weisz did was pretty cool.
All in all, if you like heist movies you will enjoy this one so long as you don't mind taking it back to the old school, before fast, glitzy heist movies like The Italian Job appeared in theaters. Appreciate the meets requirements level of this movie, because if you're looking for exceeds expectations in the categories of acting or plot you will be disappointed in my opinion.
Movies Are Life. ~ K
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I thought Rachel Weisz was great in this movie and i loved her character. So you now know one person would fell in love with her character. Hands down, the best performance i have seen this year.
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