Brothers review: Subhash Ghai type melodrama meets Mortal Kombat and audience dies of boredom

In the excellent 2011 film Warrior, Tom Hardy plays an animalistic, mildly deranged creature whose only emotional reaction is to wildly punch and kick anything in front of him. When he faces an opponent in the boxing ring, he delivers a volley of incredibly painful blows that reduce the other guy to a bloody, bruised pulp within seconds. Brothers, Karan Malhotra’s remake of Warrior, is like Hardy’s character in the ring. It’s ‘mad dog’ is Tommy and you, the audience, are the other guy. Brothers is so exhausting, you wish it came with a free pedicure coupon. Malhotra’s earlier film Agneepath was an exercise in the opposite of subtlety and a box office success, which must be the reason that formula is repeated here; but amplified by three. Warrior’s story is in essence a classic Bollywood tale. Two estranged brothers, split up by a drunken old man, forced to fight each other in the end is Subhash Ghai-level storytelling. But Warrior is a great film because of the spectacular fighting scenes, electric acting performances and the direction that punched life into the hackneyed tropes. [caption id=“attachment_2392784” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Brothers poster. Image from Facebook.[/caption] In Brothers, Malhotra drives the subtlety of the original to the ground. The hackneyed elements are covered in shine, decorated with bling and paraded around with Kareena Kapoor’s blaring “Mary” item number. Jackie Shroff shuffles around and wails (read: unfathomably hams) in long single takes. Sidharth Malhotra balances Shroff out by not moving his face throughout the entire film. Akshay Kumar salvages some grace and gets the most love from the audience. That’s right: this is a film in which Kumar’s performance is the most memorable. Whether that is because of Kumar’s new found grasp on drama or everyone else being truly horrible is moot. Your patience levels will be tested because everyone in Brothers is constantly in tears, throughout the entire film. The reason the brothers are estranged has enough emotional manipulation to make bad Subhash Ghai films like Yaadein seem subtle. The film also expects the audience to be as stupid as itself. One flashback scene has Malhotra and Kumar standing behind their respective younger versions, so that we know who is whom. Compounded with the cacophony of the snivelling, the hamming, the crying and the emotional wrangling, Brothers has ’90s style, eardrum-shattering music to make things even more velvety. The only mildly interesting aspect of the film is the legalized street fighting world championship, called R2F (Right 2 Fight), led by Kiran Kumar in a hilariously bad wig. Kumar’s character Peter Briganza, as he justifies blood soaked, unethical and often fatal fights, is a cartoonish version of Donald Sutherland’s character in The Hunger Games. There are two endlessly obnoxious commentators documenting the fights like cartoonish versions of WWF. The actual fight scenes are also cartoonish, complete with ‘the generic big guy’, called Lukkha (sorry, “Luca”) no less. The only aspect missing in this whole setup is the theme music from Mortal Kombat. Ashutosh Rana makes a cameo as Kumar’s manager, and he gets to hurl a “maa behen” expletive at full volume. Speaking of which, it’s amazing that this film, much like Agneepath despite its eyebrow raising content managed to get away with a U/A certificate. That too in an industry where the word ‘saala’ in Masaan is beeped out, even though it got an ‘A’ certificate. Karan Malhotra is clearly a better censor board pacifier than a filmmaker. Yes, the bodies in the film are buff. Both Kumar and Malhotra look impressive especially during their training montages. But one doesn’t watch a movie for buff bods anymore (there’s YouTube for that). If you’re in desperate need for some ass kicking there’s better stuff to watch than Brothers. Look up Ronda Rousey’s matches on the internet. Watch Kung Fury. Download Haywire. Or buy a DVD of Warrior, because even Tom Hardy would punch himself in the face while watching this remake.