Movie Review | Brothers: Bad blood gone wrong

A poor screenplay, throbbing background score and average performances leave mixed martial arts as the only strength of Brothers

The moment the reel for Brothers started rolling, my only concern was how director Karan Malhotra was going to execute the mixed martial arts (MMA) sequences. Expecting anything like Never Back Down was out of the question. Lyoto Machida was not going to make a guest appearance and I genuinely wondered if Brothers would actually be able to do justice to a glorious but intricate sport like MMA. To my surprise, MMA is the least of the film's problems. Unfortunately, everything else is.

A remake of Warriors, the 2011 Hollywood flick, Brothers is the story of brutal rivalry between two estranged brothers. David (Akshay Kumar) is the son of Garson and Maria Fernandes (Jackie Shroff and Shefali Shah). Garson is an alcoholic who plies his trade in the illegal fight circuit in Malhotra's fictitious portrayal of Mumbai. The family is plunged into turmoil after Garson brings home Monty (Siddharth Malhotra), his son from another woman. David develops a fondness for his younger sibling almost instantly, but the two fall apart after Garson accidentally kills his wife after a night of reckless drinking.

Fate brings the two brothers together when both are signed up for a ritzy MMA competition which is promoted by a flamboyant, ingenious businessman called Peter Briganza (played by Kiran Kumar). Ashutosh Rana also makes an appearance, first as small-time fight promoter and later as David's trainer.

The first half of the film is painfully slow, with a slew of songs randomly weaved into the story. It is after the intermission that the film springs to life. Malhotra has shot some of the MMA sequences remarkably well, but the film is let down by an annoying lack of attention to detail. Monty, for example, is thrown into the ring with a fighter twice his size. That he knocks him out with one ferocious swing of his right hand in the opening seconds of the bout is a different story.

In another scene, a German fighter is seen tossing an opponent and smashing his skull against the cage with ludicrous ease.. All this, while two frenzied commentators describe the action and draw analogies so woeful that they would have put Navjot Singh Sidhu to shame. Machida must be really glad he wasn't approached for this one.

The sight of beefy men pummeling each other gets a little suffocating after a while. Bones are crushed and blood is splattered on the canvas regularly as Shroff's character manages to sob for one reason or another throughout the film. Add to that a throbbing background score, and you're bound to get a headache by the end of the film. Also, the histrionics are too overwhelming. We all love a bit of theatre when it comes to sport, but Brothers pushes that a bit too far. While the plot is intriguing, a poor screenplay lets it down badly.

Some scenes in the film are straight out of the stuff I've encountered before. Jenny's (Jacqueline Fernandez) refusal to watch her husband, David, fight reminds you of Rene Zellweger in Cinderella Man. Shroff's character quaffing alcohol during training is similar to that of Christian Bale's in The Fighter.

The only spark of brilliance comes from Kumar. He plays a mature man devoted to his wife and daughter - whose kidney ailment is the reason why he steps back into the ring. Even in frantic fight sequences, Kumar is a picture of stupendous calm. He is the only character who holds the film together, but only in parts.

All-in-all, Brothers is a family drama that is emotionally sapping, but not engaging enough. It's laboriously slow in certain parts and hurricane-like in the others. It's a typical Karan Johar film (it has been produced by Dharma Productions) that is not quite worth it.