Metacritic reviews

However homespun The Fabulous Filipino Brothers might feel or even appear, the film has a certain charm, which many will enjoy.

Hook's Dante Basco and his brothers deliver an outrageous comedy about love & family in The Fabulous Filipino Brothers.

Romance and comedy are part and parcel, and both are done with aplomb. But what gives the work its distinction are its intersections. To be Filipino in America is to have an ever-changing relationship with otherness. The otherness of being one ethnicity among many in a national melting pot. The otherness even among other Asian Americans. And the otherness of being American in nationality but of another culture and history at heart.

Every frame is flush with warm, saturated color, and the vibrant quality of the images conveys joyous generosity. The most poignant appeal of this movie is the feeling it creates of being welcomed into a family that radiates all things bright and good.

It would be unfair to expect an amusing but slight comedy like this one to serve as a substantial political statement. On the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for any movie that reminds us, in a heartfelt but unassuming way, that we are many, but we are one.

The dialogue is clunky at times, and the forced four-narrative format means no character is really fleshed out. But the movie finds its heart and its footing in the last act with Danny’s story and a redemptive finale.

All these disparate boons, bonuses and bungles combine to make The Fabulous Filipino Brothers a film that transcends it failings and becomes not just funny and warm enough to work, but a cultural touchstone, a movie well worth dropping in on if you enjoyed any of other “cultures among us” comedies that preceded it.