Brothers Bloom ( Rian Johnson, 2008 ): USA

Reviewed by Natalie Envall. Viewed at the AFI Film Festival, Archlight Hollywood.

What attracted me most about this movie was the amazing wardrobe and the beatiful locations.
From the director Rian Johnson who made movie Brick, (a dark teenage crime drama about a teenage boy getting roped into criminal activity when trying to find his missing ex-girlfriend), comes this explosive movie that delivers a lot of laughs.

With help of a very talented cast, Academy Award Winniner Adrian Brody ( The pianist ), Academy Award Winner Rachel Weisz ( the Constant Gardner ), Academy Nominne Rinko Kikuchi ( Babel ) and Mark Ruffalo ( Zodiac ) who all deliver stellar preformances, this movie becomes a very smart, clever and flashy comedy.

The movie follows two brothers ( The Blooms) who also happens to be con men. The older brother Shephen ( Ruffalo ) who constetly is looking for a new con and never seems to take anything seriosly wants to keep the life their living while the younger brother Bloom ( Brody) wants to live an honest life, but every time he tries to leave his brother ropes him in again. This time when Bloom tries to leave he is actually sucsessful for a whole three months. Stephen finds him and convinces him to do one last con before leaving. The con involves the very wealthy but lonley Penelope ( Wiesz ) to follow them to Greece and convince her to give them money thinking their antiqe smugglers while making her think it’s her ide. Only one problem the moment Bloom sees Penelope he falls head over heels for her.

The most intresting character in this movie is Bang Bang a con woman who has a love for explosives and is working with the brothers. The character doesn’t say anything during the entire movie except for ” F**k M* ” after an explotion she set up goes wrong. Even though she is not a verbal character she is the one that shines the brightest.

One of the standouts for this movie is the fabalous costumes of the characters. Costume Designer Beatrix Arouna Pasztor designed amazing clothes for this film which really helps bring out the already colorful characters.

While this movie had many great moments the over all storyline was not that strong. The main story being about the relationships of the brothers and how Bloom never knows if Stephen is conning him or not. the film fails to bring the dramatic aspect of that relationship and it gets barried in comedy the of the movie witch ultimatly ruins the ending which had the potential to be much more powerful.