Sommerleigh Pollonais, Senior Writer

Plot: A tale of family, friendships and betrayal in the violent world of the Philadelphia mob.

Review: After watching this movie, I now know what if feels like to be catfished.

Why catfished, you ask? Well, Brothers by Blood stars two of my onscreen crushes —Matthias Schoenaerts (Red Sparrow/The Old Guard) and Joel Kinnaman (Run All Night/Suicide Squad). With eye candy like that involved, I figured why the hell not?! I get to ogle two of my favourite actors and take in a fun action thriller while I’m at it. Turns out, only one of those things were right.

Brothers by Blood was in a word, boring. It has the least amount of action I’ve seen in an action thriller in years, and honestly if they just said it was a drama maybe I would’ve looked at it with a different perspective. All we get here is the story of two cousins who grew up in a gang-related family. They were raised like brothers, and now as adults one of them is much more violent and unhinged than the other, leading to drama and possible deadly consequences between them.

Now the acting here is not the problem folks. My dudes deliver, each in their own way. No one does quiet strength quite like Matthias Schoenaerts. If you’ve seen his work, you know what I’m talking about. Joel Kinnaman also has no trouble holding his own and I don’t have to point any further than his turn as the ultra-cool Takeshi Kovacs in Altered Carbon Season 1, for you to know he can play hero and villain alike. Even Ryan Phillippe, who has grown into quite the actor since his I Know What You Did Last Summer and Cruel Intentions days, nails it in flashback scenes as Schoenaerts’ father. But all the good acting in the world can’t save us from this dull as unbuttered toast screenplay.

Brothers by Blood might’ve worked better as an episode or two of The Sopranos, but as a whole movie there just isn’t any energy, deep emotions or even basic thrills to make this one worth watching.

Digging through my mind palace (which is made up of about 90 per cent movies) I would recommend checking out 1993’s Blood In Blood Out instead. A similar type of story, but it’s loads better than this one.

Sommer’s Score: 4 out of 10

For my review of serial killer thriller The Little Things you can click here. And to keep up to date with all Redmangoreviews articles you can like and follow us on Facebook here.

 Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.

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