Sometimes charming and occasionally tedious, revisionist Western The Sisters Brothers offers audiences a mixed bag of compelling family drama and rousing gold rush thrill.
What do you think of when you think about Westerns? Maybe Clint Eastwood’s turn in The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly comes to mind. Perhaps you think of John Ford and his many, many westerns including The Searchers and Stagecoach. I remember being a kid sitting on the floor in my grandfather’s den as a Western played at full volume on the small black and white TV. The sound of gunfire filled the small room as cowboys rode their horses across the small TV screen.
Westerns were a centerpiece of my grandfather’s viewing habits — the sound of them always echoing from the other room, even if he wasn’t watching. When I was younger, I considered Westerns a retired genre, one that would undoubtedly disappear now that the Wild West was a thing of the past. Of course I was wrong. See, there’s nothing Hollywood loves more than looking to and recreating the past!
Yet with The Sisters Brothers, director Jacques Audiard makes the West feel new again, creating a film that is far different than my grandfather’s Westerns. Audiences will find no romanticized Wild West in Audiard’s film, but rather a thorny, wicked world where debts and deceit drive men’s egos, pushing them into exceedingly dangerous and perilous situations.
In The Sisters Brothers, there’s no conflict that could not be prevented without a cooler head and calmer thinking, but the movie is intent on revealing the near farcical consequences of man’s ego and desire for expansion.
Starring Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly as Charlie and Eli Sisters — brothers who make a living as hired guns — The Sisters Brothers is a compelling inversion of stereotypical Western conventions that resists the temptation to romanticize a world so prominent in the mythologized history of the United States.
Adapted from a novel of the same name by Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers follows Charlie and Eli, hired by the infamous Commodore, as they chase after Hermann Warm (Riz Ahmed), a chemist with a secret chemical formula that allows him to more efficiently find and collect gold. Their chase is complicated by John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), a detective also hired by the Commodore who ends up enamored with the chemist.
Audiard takes his time in fleshing out these two narrative strands, splitting most of the movie’s run time between two separate but related journeys — the first between two brothers trying to do their job and stay alive, the other between two strangers on the run searching for gold.
There is an aimlessness with which the movie moves back and forth between these plots. As Charlie and Eli inch their way towards Warm and Morris, Audiard focuses on building a sincere emotional connection between the characters rather than ratcheting up the dramatic tension.
The result is transformative, turning what might otherwise be a familiar tale of greed in the Wild West into a story about man’s desperate need for companionship. Despite their individual desires and priorities, the movie depicts all the ways in which they concede these personal needs in order to protect their companions. It’s a fascinating interrogation of the tug of war between selfishness and selflessness that exists in every relationship — no matter how new, no matter how old.
This is not to say that the movie eschews plot completely. That’s far from true. Warm’s formula promises big rewards to the man that uses it. The fight for that formula, although rather muted, remains an undercurrent pulling the plot along. The formula, the very existence of it and the consequences it brings, is a sort of allegory for the selfish, lazy, entrepreneurial attitude that would later become a hallmark of the American capitalist system.
Moreover, Audiard slowly reveals how the Sisters brothers’ past plays into their story. Their relationship, and their work for the Commodore, is framed around the repercussions of events from their youth — the loss of their father, family, and wealth.
Ultimately, The Sisters Brothers is far more akin to a character study than a conventional Western. The result is a bit of a mixed bag. The focus on character lends itself to some stellar performances, especially from Riz Ahmed and John C. Reilly. Reilly in particular shines throughout the film, delivering a nuanced performance that takes advantage of his unique talent for working in the liminal space between comedy and drama. The focus also makes certain scenes — like Charlie and Eli’s visit to a fancy hotel — an incredible example of how plot and setting are enhanced when an audience really understands a character’s point of view.
However, the lazy and rambling way in which the movie unfolds makes The Sisters Brothers a somewhat tedious venture. Whatever success the movie has in concluding on a poignant note is overshadowed by the lack of purpose so much of the film is missing.
It’s hard to give The Sisters Brothers two thumbs up knowing how many movies have delivered far better revisionist Western stories — look to the Coen Brothers’ films No Country for Old Men or True Grit or Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller — but The Sisters Brothers is by no means bad; it simply falters in its execution, giving us a movie that may be just slightly too muted for its own good.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️