The Brothers Bloom | DVD Review

It’s unfair to make excuses for The Brothers Bloom’s lack of box-office success, or critical reception, because frankly it doesn’t need any. This is a great film.

Summit are still relatively new in the game, sure, you could argue that the marketing campaign was a confusing mess, (it felt like a straight-to-dvd mash-up of “Ocean’s 11” and “The Royal Tenenbaums”), and yeah, perhaps delaying the release by 5 months to a date that seemed to come out of nowhere didn’t help, but the fact remains that many films struggle to find their audience. As for reviews, the critical consensus could be summarized as luke-warm, at best. That said, it should be interesting to see how those same critics might feel years from now if they should find themselves watching this romantic and bright con flick on a casual Sunday. What might turn many viewers off is that, like “Brick”, “The Brothers Bloom” wears its influences proudly on its long sleeves; be it in the visuals, the dialog, the props, or even its narrator, Rian Johnson emptied his chambers on this one, then reloaded 6 or 7 times.

The film boasts 3 principle characters, each with their own fleshed out story, various locations and settings, and several con jobs (each with their own supporting players). The aforementioned dialog is rich, and while at times arguably too “cute” it didn’t take away from the film’s many charms. Well cast, beautifully photographed, and hardly ever dull, this is precisely the kind of plot-driven film that should be cherished, if for no better reason, because the film-maker cares to tell a good story.

Whatever the case, crime-fiction fans, con job enthusiasts, and romantic-adventure lovers have something worth checking out.

The DVD/Blu-Ray release comes with controversy as it is only available for rent and PPV in the US. Apparently this should give video stores a wider window to make money and in turn allow the film to take up a few more slots on the shelf for a longer period of time. Not since VHS was the standard has this distribution process been used (as far as I know), and while the death of the Video store (and disc) seems inevitable, it will be interesting to see the results of this experiment.

As for the features…

AUDIO COMMENTARY with Director Rian Johnson and Producer Ram Bergman:

This is actually Rian Johnson’s second audio commentary for the film (the first was released as a download for your iPod during the film’s theatrical release), this time accompanied by the film’s producer. As far as commentary’s go this one is definitely one of the better tracks out there. Mr. Johnson talks fast enough to dish on some genuinely interesting facts about the films production (such as the potential involvement of Bob Dylan), and manages to answer questions from his followers on Twitter whenever he might not have anything to add, rare as it was.

FROM SKETCH TO CELLULOID

As the title suggests this feature shows you 3 scenes from the film, each in a 3-way split screen featuring Rian Johnson’s original sketches, the evolved story-board artists sketches, and the final film for comparison. One might get a kick out of seeing what changed (or didn’t) from the sketches to the film, but mostly this feature should serve as inspiration to aspiring filmmakers hoping to someday translate their vision to film.

BLOOM: Behind the Scenes

This is short and standard when it comes to Behind-the-Scenes footage, but recommended to anyone that enjoyed the film.

DELETED SCENES

Rian Johnson’s commentary on these is a must since, like most Deleted Scenes, they wouldn’t make much sense out of context. There are many that didn’t make the cut, enough to realize that the film could have been quite different.

IMAGE GALLERY

This isn’t your usually gallery in that you don’t scroll through images with the remote arrow keys. It’s actually a 3min. video showing more sketch/film comparisons, as well as some other reference and inspirational material for the film. Doesn’t seem developed enough to matter, but short enough to check it out regardless.

Rian Johnson ups the ante with this follow-up to the miraculous “Brick” and delivers a light-hearted crime-fiction romantic-adventure blend of a film. While the disc isn’t loaded with features, it has enough to justify buying it (when it’s released for sale in 2010).

Movie rating – 4

Disc Rating – 3.5