The Brothers Bloom

If you are in the mood for some not so light comedy (cannot call it dark really). Something that is not run of the mill and bordering on esoteric (for lack of any other word). Something different or Hat Ke (off the beaten path) as we would like to call. And yet, something that keeps you entertained and rooted to the screen. A movie that keeps you interested and eager to find out – what next? A movie that has its dull moments but they are few and far between. Then I would recommend that you don’t miss The Brothers Bloom the next time it plays on Television. For the life of me, I cannot remember which channel it was playing on. But I do remember that it will play all this month and you will have many an opportunity to catch up with it. Keep your eyes open for that promo that calls out the time or the TV Schedules that appear in the TOI every day and are reasonably accurate.


The Brothers Bloom is directed by Rian Johnson whose only reasonable claim to fame seems to be another off-beat movie called Brick starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and is rated at 7.5 on imdb which is quite high I must say. So I need to now add Brick to my watch list. But independent of that, Johnson seems to be the one who believes in disjointed stuff which keeps the audience engaged. But he may just be flirting a bit too much with the disjointed in an otherwise quite straightforward story. The experiement therefore leads the movie to be a tad slower than the pace it actually should have set. When you have a storyline about 2 brothers whose only skill set has been conning people since their childhood, one would expect that the movie would be a bit more pacy than the final product.

The Brothers Bloom has a cast which is extremely talented. Despite the scowl that he has on his face most of the time, I have always felt that Mark Ruffalo is a tad under-rated. He is definitely capable of much more than what we have seen – an aspect that is evident with his very strong performance as the elder brother Stephen whose aim in life is to come up with the perfect con – one which is so life like that it is perceived to be true by all those who were involved or affected. And the trust one can put on the youngest winner of the Best Actor Oscar is unquestionable. Even the supporting role played by Rinko Kikuchi as Bang Bang (now hows that for a name) is good. But of course, taking the cake not just with her looks but also with another super performance as the versatile heiress of a huge fortune is the current Mrs. Craig (Rachel Weisz for the ill-informed). It would suffice to say therefore that The Brothers Bloom is a movie led by a strong star cast. It is definitely watchable. In fact you should make an effort to see it. 7 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi457245465/