Broderskab

I found this movie to be absolutely stunning in terms of direction and acting. The two lead actors were absolutely great and believable in their performances. The director was great at capturing moments of erotic tension and tenderness between the two leads. In terms of plot and story-writing there are certainly some flaws that could have been better worked out, but I really appreciated the way the theme was approached and developed. The neo nazi ideology was certainly one of the main themes but the director and the writers weren't too judgmental and they let the characters shine regardless of the reasons that brought them to be a part of such a violent and racist community. I certainly advice to watch it, cause it gives a good depiction of a "different" homosexual relationship not framable in the usual stereotypes of gay love. Good job!

As soon as a movie starts, I start thinking about how I'm going to review it. For the first 40 minutes, I thought I was going to throw this movie in the gutter where it belonged when I reviewed it, because for all that time there's practically nothing but revolting Nazi crap. It's very, very hard to sit through. The first scene is the violent beating of a cruising gay man by a skinhead who had come on to him and told him how beautiful he was before calling out his gang to beat and kick the guy to a pulp (an incident that re-enters the story significantly near the end).

After that are long scenes of the ugly Nazis (the men are physically as well as morally ugly) spewing their toxic garbage into my ears where it was not welcome. But then... ah, then... at about the 41-minute mark, Lars and Jimmy start looking at each other in a new way, and EVERYTHING changes. The first 40 minutes of hateful garbage are well worth suffering through to get to that exquisite tenderness and passion.

Thure Lindhardt as Lars is a gentle, enormously attractive beauty from his first scene to his last, but the character is pretty flat: steady and strong but not very interesting. David Dencik got the meaty role in Jimmy, and he pulls it off brilliantly. He is completely believable both as the bitter, arrogant, brutal Nazi homophobe and as the sweet, gentle, deeply vulnerable and passionate man who eventually emerges from that hateful shell. If the first third of the movie had not been so revolting, Jimmy's emergence from that horrible world would not have been so marvelous. And it IS marvelous, some of the loveliest acting I have ever seen.

Raw, naked, totally defenseless vulnerability is something rarely seen in movies, particularly from male actors. In fact the ONLY previous example that comes to mind is Jane Fonda fairly early in her career - in Klute and even more powerfully earlier in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Fonda, in both those roles, had been beaten down by a cruel system she was helpless against; but Dencik is breaking out - against his own will - from within an even more brutal system in which he has been on top and on which he has been completely dependent for his identity.

He discovers that he's just like the guys he's been attacking, and that discovery shatters him. It shatters him, but it finally begins to set him free to be himself for the first time. It's a very great performance that makes an otherwise mediocre movie (deeply offensive when it's not simply unbelievable) well worth watching. The transformation just in his eyes is astonishing. All eight stars are for him.

Ah, the magic and confusing explosive mixture of machismo and sexuality!!! There is no other institution with such discomfort at the mention of homosexuality, than the military. It certainly makes a lot of sense. If your purpose is spilling of the blood, what do you do with arousal and men loving ? Well, the skinheads are based on the same false patriotic and quasi-military principals. Shaved heads, extremely tight pants, loud music, cheap beer, and almost exclusively male company.No surprise than, that Lars and Jimmy hit it off so well nor that it ended so badly. Nothing filthier than moronic notions of purity, racial or sexual. The nature of humankind is exactly the lack of purity and aching imperfection of us all. Whenever you try to take that away, you destroy the essence of our existence.where do you go after that?

I rarely take the time to sit down and write a review after watching movies, but for Brotherhood I opted to make an exception. This movie was so wonderfully composed I hardly know where to begin. It had everything I look for in a movie, depth, superb acting, chemistry between characters, intriguing/thought provoking plot, and a well-choreographed cinematography.

Let's just start with the two main characters, Lars and Jimmy. I mentioned already that the two of them had great chemistry, and nowhere is that more apparent then in scenes where the two of them become intimate. There is a wonderful tenderness between the two that is communicated simply through body language and fleeting glances. You can tell exactly what they're thinking about one another with every glance.... the fear, hesitation, longing, it's all said without words. Beautifully done.

What makes the relationship between Lars and Jimmy even more striking is by having it take place against the backdrop of the intolerant Neo-Nazi organization that both men belong to. It adds a whole new sense of irony and suspense to the story, while also casting a looming sense of foreboding over their entire relationship.

You just know after watching the beginning scene (in which a gay man is brutally beaten into hospitalization by the brotherhood), that something terrible is going to happen to Jimmy and Lars if anyone ever finds out. I found myself biting my nails through the whole movie just hoping that they'd avoid that type of situation.

Unfortunately, there is a fair bit of violence at the end, but perhaps not from places you might expect it from initially. In any case, I felt more or less content with how the director chose to resolve the film. He didn't pretty anything up for us or give us a fairytale ending by any means, but he didn't completely crush our spirits either.

What he did do was deliver us a movie that was both deeply moving and tragically human. Mistakes were made, pain was delivered, betrayals were made, but intertwined throughout all the bad, there was beauty, compassion, acceptance, and love. It was a great movie and I would definitely recommend it to others without hesitation.

My one qualm with this movie has to do with Jimmy's background story. I would have liked just a bit more information as to what really motivated him to join the Aryan Brotherhood in the first place. Other than that, it was wonderful!

at first sigh, a strange , unrealistic story. at the second, a good job. in fact, only a hypothesis about a men click and the clash between feelings and ideology. not new idea but used in wise manner. cold, cruel, with subtle references to Greek mythology, Brotherhood has a lot of virtues. the acting, the script, the set, the atmosphere, the not comfortable situations, the culture of hate against an exotic form of heresy. a film who propose a bitter subject who could not be represented only by gay relation but the manner to define the pillars of national identity, the courage and the national virtues. a film about a group and its broken rules. and a brilliant art of exploration of details.