France/Spain/Romania/Belgium/USA  –  Adventure/Comedy/|Crime –  Year: 2018 
–  Running time: 122 mins
Languages: English

Audience response:

Rating: (4.35 from 34 responses)

• Excellent’: 18 votes
• ‘Very Good’: 11 votes
• ‘Good’: 4 votes
• ‘Satisfactory’: 1 vote
• ‘Poor’: 0 votes

Read the comments here or visit our “The Sisters Brothers” discussion page

Synopsis:

It’s 1851 and Charlie and Eli Sisters, brothers and assassins, boys grown to men in a savage and hostile world, journey through the Northwest, bringing them to the mountains of Oregon, a dangerous brothel in a small town and, eventually, the gold rush land of California – an adventure that tests the deadly family ties that bind. Audiard’s English-language debut is an all-American delight.

This is a superb film – offbeat, constantly surprising, alternately violent, funny and deeply poignant.
Demetrios Matheou (The Arts Desk)

Director: Jacques Audiard
Dheepan (2015) / Rust and Bone (2012) / A Prophet (2009)

(for full cast and more information, see “The Sisters Brothers” in IMDB)

CFC Film Notes

This marks the Hollywood debut for the highly eclectic French Auteur Jacques Audiard and it comes as some surprise that he opts for a Western to mark this occasion, a genre that US cinema has struggled to resurrect over the decades.   What is no surprise is the high quality cast that Audiard has assembled including Joaquin Phoenix and John C Reilly as the eponymous ‘heroes’ of the tale- Charlie and Eli Sisters. The brothers are assassins in pursuit of a gold prospector (Riz Ahmed) who has stolen from their boss. Whilst Charlie enjoys the life of hard drinking and violence, Eli is more thoughtful and yearns for a life beyond the frontier. Their encounter with their quarry and the detective also in pursuit (Jake Gyllenhaal) will test both the brother’s morality, masculinity as well as their relationship when greed and avarice also surface.

Audiard’s revisionist Western is a treat for lovers of the genre, mixing witty humour with heartbreaking tragedy.  In the brothers we get to see how the West was through the violence and devil may care attitude of Charlie and what it will become through the more pensive eyes of Eli.   There is a delightful scene when Eli attempts to embrace modernity via the purchase of a toothbrush and paste. But it is their encounter with science and progress, as demonstrated by Ahmed, that will seal their fate.  This film, with its sublime imagery and off beat yet witty screenplay feels like it may have come from the early 70s.  For many, that is no bad thing either.

Selected UK Reviews:

New Statesman (Anna Leskiewicz)
Independent (Geoffrey Macnab)
The Big Issue (Cath Clarke)