The Sisters Brothers (2018)

Certainly the better of the two Westerns I've seen today, but I'm also not really feeling the love with _Sisters Brothers_ like everybody else seems to be.

_Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._...

_**A plodding and overlong tale of violence and redemption that doesn't seem to know quite what it's trying to say**_

> _You are afraid of hell. But that's all religion is, really. Fear of a place we'd rather not be, and where there's no such a thing as suicide to steal us away._

- Patrick deWitt; _The Sisters Brothers_ (2011)

_The Sisters Brothers_ is a film set in the American Old West, based on a book by a Canadian, made by a mostly French crew, shot primarily in Spain and Romania, featuring a Brit as an American, an American as a Brit, and a British trans comedian as a ruthless American businesswoman. And I don't bring this up out of mere frivolousness; rather, a certain element of schizophrenia is built into the film's very DNA. On the surface it's a Revisionist Western with ...

I was looking forward to this. It has two of my favorite actors in it. Unfortunately, I had to give up on watching it. It's impossible to see what's going on. There are some shadows moving about, sometimes covering each other. A dot lights up occasionally on my 55-inch OLED. I can see subtitles, hear the sound. This is apparently one of those "someone invented HDR, that means we should put a cloth over the lens" kind of movies. Such a shame....

It might be that the clever title and the fact that this is backed by an whole host of European film funds is all that makes this rather sterile Western memorable. It's all about the enigmatic "Commodore" (Rutger Hauer) employing the eponymous brothers - "Eli" (John C. Reilly) and "Charlie" (Joaquin Phoenix) to track down the mild-mannered prospector "Kermit Warm" (a rather mis-cast Riz Ahmed) whom he accuses of theft. This isn't the first time he has engaged them, and both are suspicious of the activities of their boss - but he pays well and they quite enjoy their jobs. Whatever the man stole is important enough for "Morris" (Jake Gyllenhaal) to also be employed and it's him who finds their target travelling to San Francisco. He makes all the overtures of friendship, but we quickly learn ...