The Sisters Brothers

It's a name that I've seen for years in my local used bookstore. But I didn't think much of it. There's much to think about Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers as it goes from page to screen. It's not like most westerns you've seen.

Eli (John C. Reilly) and Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix) Sisters are Brothers. More precisely, they're master assassins in The Old West. They take orders from an enigmatic Commodore. This time, the Commodore orders them after Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed). Warm invented a formula which lights up all the gold in riverbeds. Naturally, the Brothers' job is to get Warm, the Formula and Warm, again.

But Eli feels dissatisfied with the hired gun life. And he's worried about Charlie's obnoxious drunkenness and violence. The Gold Formula might give them a way out. Another hired gun, Mr. Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), was supposed to lead the Sisters to their targets. But he decides to join Warm on his prospecting. The Sisters soon follow. They're soon targeted by more hired guns. It's complicated.

Director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) and his co-writer, Thomas Bidegain, start things with a dark opening sequence. Cinematographer Benoit Debie shows the Sisters at work in a pitch black plain. The only light is their gun flashes. And then a barn fire with panicking horses. What an introduction. Later scenes, including an eerie nightmare, emphasize the dark in dark comedy. You might ask what's so funny about it all.

The film works best as an introspective character study. Reilly and Phoenix are believable as brothers. They're both bummed out with the world, but they have their own coping methods. Eli's "think of the future" clashes with Charlie's "think of now." Meanwhile, Ahmed's Warm is an idealist whose worldview makes Morris reconsider his life choices. The backstories we gradually learn makes their worldviews understandable. They're likable enough that the audience is on their side. The price of the formula is tragic.

The film editing (by Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss and Juliette Welfing) keeps the movie going good for two hours. There's some pacing issues when Morris first appears, but they got better down the line. The best of the technicals, other than the cinematography, were the makeup designs and Milena Canonero's costumes. The makeup, in particular, gives us the disturbing side effects of Warm's formula.

Don't let the odd title dissuade you. The Sisters Brothers is odd but interesting. It's like Unforgiven done by the Coen Brothers. The characters and their world are memorable. Their story is unforgettable. The moral issues are gripping. It's not playing anywhere close to everywhere now. So see it if you're theater is lucky. You'll have much to think about if you do.