BROTHER Review - A Completely Messed-Up Family Drama

Ashwin Ram

Brother is a family drama starring Jayam Ravi, Priyanka Mohan and Bhoomika in lead roles. Directed by M. Rajesh and the music is composed by Harris Jayaraj.

Premise: Jayam Ravi keeps creating problems in his livelihood due to his extreme social rules. His sister Bhoomika takes him to her house at Ooty to revamp his behavior. The happenings at his sister’s in-laws place forms the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction:  Starts as a typical M.Rajesh film by establishing the characters and explaining their lives through his voice-over. Being generic is not the issue here, but the problem is mixing all the regular tropes which we have seen in Tamil cinema till date in a single script. Not really treated as a comedy flick, but there are moments where they attempt to make us laugh which go in vain. The family drama is constructed very badly, there is a serious conflict that arises in the interval block about a woman being with self-respect, but the construction has nothing to do with that, the director failed to set the audience’s mind for what is coming next. There’s a convincing flashback in the second half about Jayam Ravi’s birth, it didn’t really kick-off as the purpose to keep such backstory was lame. Also, he changes his mind after listening to, which is fine, but the after effects in his behavior are contradictory to the subject’s ideology. The screenplay tests patience almost for the entire run, filled with relentless situations, boring scenes and silly characterizations. Just because the film is titled brother, everybody keeps calling him as brother, right from the servant to the random doctor he consults, even his potential father-in-law mentions him as ‘Thambi’. The small twist in the climax is enjoyable and it is in the perfect M.Rajesh zone, unfortunately he missed to deliver to his strengths.

Performances: Pretty good performance from Jayam Ravi in the second half as he had the scope to do so in some emotional scenes with his sibling. Amateur acting by Priyanka Mohan as she struggles to express. VTV Ganesh’s jokes are annoying, there are even a couple of separate track comedies that appear as crashing bore stretches. Bhoomika and her in-laws have their share of importance in the story, but their weak characterization and presence make the cinematic appeal extremely weird. Sathish feels like a joker, heavily inspired from Beast.

Technicalities: Makkamishi is a vibe material, other songs are also decent despite being in the usual Harris sounding. Lazy background score with repetitive music by copying and pasting from all the songs, also they appear so odd for the situations. Many monotonous choices in the visual language, needless usage of hand-held cameras and no proper utilization of a beautiful hill place like Ooty. Poor editor, what can he possibly do when not even a single scene is worthy in a movie. Worst sound mixing in recent times… dialogues, sound effects and background score overlap each other in many moments.

Verdict:  The humor falls extremely flat and the melodramatic emotional scenes can easily become the fun quotient. With the writing being convenient to the core and such lazy direction, there are no redeeming qualities.

BROTHER - A Completely Messed-Up Family Drama!

Rating - 1.5/ 5.