Four Brothers Movie Misses Its ‘Mark’

We went to see Four Brothers last night — largely based on the fact that it was #1 at the box office (bumping Dukes of Hazzard to #3 after being at #1 for the past 2 weeks).

We actually had been wanting to see the Dukes of Hazzard just for the fun of it (and for the eye candy, says Jim), but we it’s been getting mediocre reviews, so we weren’t sure we wanted to waste our $30 date-night on it.

If Four Brothers beat out the Dukes of Hazzard this week, then we figured it MUST be a good movie!

…WRONG.

Perhaps the most disappointing part was Marky Mark‘s part.

Sorry, I’m a product of the 80s, and I still refer to them as:

• Marky Mark …instead of Mark Wahlberg

 

• John Cougar …instead of John Mellencamp

 

• Prince …instead of the artist formerly known as

Anyway…

Marky Mark usually shines in movies, but this entire movie was one big over-exaggerated piece of work, and Marky Mark’s part was just one small aspect of that.

The stereotypes were all overplayed, the “gangsta” attitude was fake (do gangsters really call refer to each other as gangsters???), the “whodunnit” mystery part was built up way too much, the sweet/touching moments were too long and out of place. Nothing really felt “right” about this entire movie.

Given that, we didn’t HATE it. In fact, it might even make a decent rental — that’s where you’re willing to take some chances, right? But it’s definitely not worth the $16 tickets + $14 popcorn! (As another Yahoo reviewer said, “You could do a lot worse than this film.”)

More Negatives…

• It was violent (a lot of heavy punching, bleeding, guns and some knifing). That in itself didn’t bother me, but the overly long shoot-em-up scenes got old.
• Marky Mark had this fake grimace on his face through most of the movie — supposedly to enhance his “bad boy” image for the show. He obviously tried WAY too hard to be a bad boy in this one.
• The car chase/crash scene was SO outlandish! Among other things, Marky Mark as the driver was never even looking at the ROAD during this entire intense chase… through obstacles! He was always looking at and talking to his passengers/brothers. Add to this, the fact that it’s a chase scene that went on far too long just for the sake of being a long car chase scene. Maybe they felt the novelty of it taking place in SNOW made it better. It didn’t.

On The Plus Side…

• There was an interesting twist in the “whodunnit theory” late in the movie.
• While none of the action scenes was much to speak of, the “big one” (in the middle) was too long, but rather well done.
• There was one, ever so brief, “woah!” moment at the very end of the movie that was interesting and unexpected.
• Believe it or not, this movie had about a dozen scenes involving humor. Just quick one-liners. I laughed out loud at about half of them. But I was surprised… the ones I laughed at were not the same ones most of the audience laughed at and vice versa. Then there were those few scenes which you could tell were added solely for the laugh-factor alone, yet they didn’t so much as get a chuckle.

The Next Movie On Our List?
I actually thought about seeing Hustle & Flow in the coming weeks. But John Singleton directed that one too, so now I’m not so sure. It HAS gotten better ratings than Four Brothers, at least.

Now HERE’s one we really want to see: The 40 Year Old Virgin. Silly?… yes. But we’re ready for a good laugh after a couple of “downers” at the theater lately (…Mr. & Mrs. Smith included)!

— > Here’s our detailed review of these and other recent releases.