Written and Directed by Jérémie Guez
Starring Matthias Schoenaerts, Joel Kinnaman, Maika Monroe, and Ryan Phillippe
Running time: 1 hour and 20 minutes

by Matt McCafferty

The gangster/family crime thriller continues to be a popular film subgenre. Each year brings us a decent number of new releases within this group (and a few TV series as well). That’s not meant to be a complaint. I’m a huge fan of many of these films. Some of them get a ton of attention (The Irishman is a good recent example), while others fade away into the crowded genre. As for Brothers By Blood, I hope it’s one that will find its audience. A story about family, friendships and betrayal in the violent world of the Philadelphia mob, it blends the familiar family mob story formula with a compelling character study that is anchored by a terrific performance from Matthias Schoenaerts. 

Based off of the 1991 Pete Dexter novel, Brotherly Love, the story follows Peter Flood (Matthias Schoenaerts) as he tries to distance himself from the criminal family business that is now headed by his cousin Michael (Joel Kinnaman). Michael calls the shots for the Irish in their ongoing conflicts with the Italians as each family plots their retaliations against each other for all kinds of reasons. Michael is the unpredictable hot head who puts his crew in tough spots with his quick (and usually violent) gut-reactions. Peter is the level-headed one who is mostly looking for a way out of the criminal lifestyle. 

Before I dive further into the film, I want to quickly mention the similarities between this and the 2010 Ben Affleck film, The Town. I have a feeling I won’t be the only one who takes notice of these similarities. Of course, Philadelphia is our main backdrop here instead of Boston. In fact, the original title was The Sound of Philadelphia. Even though Brothers By Blood doesn’t utilize key locations of Philadelphia to play big roles in the story the way The Town uses Boston, it does lean on the city’s underground crime scene in a similar fashion. But most notably, it’s the resembling Affleck/Renner relationship and the look and feel of the cinematography that led me to this thought. I also recently did a ten-year anniversary piece on The Town, so maybe this comparison came easily to me with this recent watch fresh in my mind. I should mention that this is not meant to be a knock on the film, but more so an observation as to what may have been a source of inspiration for the film to go along with the source material. 

The film does take a little bit of time to find its rhythm. Director Jérémie Guez remains patient during the first part of the story by introducing us to the characters without actually showing them in action as dangerous criminals. We learn about them simply from their conversations. For example, we get a feel for Michael in one of the opening scenes by watching him conduct some shading dealings with a city official. It’s a quick display of the kind of power that Michael possesses in the city. We also see Peter warn a restaurant owner (Paul Schneider) about borrowing money from his cousin. He ensures him that Michael’s dangerously erratic behavior is bound to eventually rear its ugly head. 

As we get a little further along into the story, we start to get flashbacks of Peter as a child that help piece together the history of the relationships that are at work in the present day. Many of the flashbacks show us his father’s (Ryan Phillippe) role in the family business, along with his pursuit to bring vengeance to the man who hit and killed his daughter with his car in front of his home. The revelations from these slices of history leak into Peter’s current day mindset as he deals with many of the same struggles that his father faced. 

The acting is great across the board here, but it’s Matthias Schoenaerts who stood out the most to me. And it’s not with some over-the-top showy performance. In fact, it’s just the opposite. His tame, yet very powerful presence gives off a Viggo Mortensen vibe. I’m thinking of Mortensen’s performances in A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. Like Mortensen, Schoenaerts is a pretty big guy with a brooding nature to his look. He doesn’t need to say much at all to give off that great sense of strength. And really, he isn’t given much dialogue in many scenes. But Schoenaerts’ eyes alone are plenty expressive to show us what he’s wrestling with from scene to scene. I just love these types of quiet performances when they are done right like this. 

There isn’t much in terms of big action sequences. The violence that does occur happens in small spurts or off screen. So while Brothers By Blood mostly fits the mold of the gangster/family crime film, it doesn’t follow suit with this aspect. It’s this choice to hold back on some of the violent action scenes that made me like this film that much more. Do we really need to see a man getting the shit beat out of him until he’s down to his last few breaths? There are plenty of other movies out there that can show you that kind of raw violence. Instead, we see the after effects of the violence and how these characters decide to handle them. For a plot that revolves around violent altercations, it’s not about showcasing them.

Director Jérémie Guez keeps his focus on the ongoing simmering conflict between the two cousins. A conflict that boils underneath the surface of each scene. These mob movies tend to provide entertainment by showing us this unique lifestyle of crime that most of us (thankfully) will never experience. But here, we are invested in the evolving relationship between Peter and Michael more so than anything else. Keeping this relationship at the heart of the story is what kept me locked in from beginning to end. 

Brothers By Blood is in select theatres and available on VOD January 22nd.