Movie Summary by Michael The Moviegoer.
THE BROTHERS BLOOM = ***1/2
“A Con-Artist Movie Made With Confidence”
I’ll never forget the first time I saw “The Sting”. At the end, I felt like I had been the victim of a con along with the characters. Ever since then, I’ve always loved movies that could fool me. Of course, I’ve always hated movies that I found to be too predictable. “The Brothers Bloom” is a little bit of both, but is ultimately saved by a genuinely surprising finish.
There is a lot of back-story devoted to how these siblings grew up to be con artists, and those scenes are as rich and rewarding as the scenes of the con game itself.
The film stars Oscar winners Adrien Brody (“The Pianist”) and Rachel Weisz (“The Constant Gardener”) in roles requiring equal parts comedy and drama, and they nail it.
Their con isn’t always easy to understand, but it’s quite entertaining and a lot of fun to be along for the ride. It involves the theft of some ancient and valuable book from the Prague Castle, although I’m not really clear as to why. Unlike one of my favorite movies about the con game, David Mamet’s “House Of Games”, where they make a point to teach us how the con will work, “The Brothers Bloom” doesn’t offer us any con-game lessons. It’s just a fun quirky romp through international locations that may make “The Brothers Bloom” this year’s “In Bruges”.
DVD Watch: Although it does have a few big laughs, “The Brothers Bloom” tries to keep it real by staying on the dramatic side of the fence. But a similar movie that knows it’s a laugh-out-loud slapstick comedy about con artists is the completely adorable Frank Oz film from 1988, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine.
Michael The Moviegoer
