Brotherhood

Brotherhood a story of a fraternity initiation stunt gone very, very wrong was a hit at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival that I'd regretted missing. With it's release this Tuesday on video I got another opportunity to catchup with the film. I'm quite glad I did. While the film certainly isn't going to do any good for the fraternity system's public relations efforts it's a slickly produced, tense yet eminently watchable ride populated by a crew of well cast actors.

The first segment is almost ridiculously intense in all the right ways. The overall arc definitely held my attention and a good number of the twists and turns weren't anticipated.  There are perhaps limits to how unique a film about the intense peer pressure of a frat can be - even when crossed with the pattern of bunch of folks layering one bad decision on top of another until the breaking point is hit. Brotherhood does scape along the boundary of this line at times.  But overall I think there's a lot to recommend it even if the conclusion isn't 100% satisfying.  For a well executed example of pushing the throttle to 11 and just leaving it there, cinematically speaking, you could do far worse.

Knowing a lot about the story isn't really the best idea if you're planning on seeing Brotherhood. Not that there's one HUGE twist at the end and knowing of it can spoil the ride.  But I think the closer you are to the state of knowledge that the pledges face in the beginning the better off the experience will be.  Speaking of those folks - the film opens with a group of pledges undergoing a hazing activity.  But rather than the stereotypical excessive alcohol consumption or a room full of goats this involves them being taken on a ride in a van.  Each time the van stops one of the group is handed a ski mask and revolver and told to rob the liquor store they've just pulled up in front of.  Not surprisingly, this doesn't go extremely well, shocking - I know.  At the same time the rest of the fraternity is having a huge party which does involve much of the irresponsible drinking and casually cruel misogyny I think you can't make a film like this without.  It doesn't take too long for the two groups to be pulled together.  In addition to the tension of the "holy shit everything is going wrong" and the compounding of that by poor decision making there's also the tension between the frat pledgemaster douchebag overlord and the most ethically minded of the pledges (though that's not a high bar) Adam (Trevor Morgan). Who's none too thrilled with the poor quality of decisions being made one after another by everyone in sight.  The night devolves in part into a high stakes game of chicken between the two.  Which keeps you guessing until the end if you're watching a horror film / tragedy, an optimistic thriller or a broader statement on group dynamics.  The only thing you're quite sure about is that Brotherhood is in no danger of morphing into a romantic-comedy.

I suspect this wasn't a particularly high budget endeavor, just from some things I read early one and a random conversation I had on line with someone at SXSW who I believe was (or worked with) the producers.  But truth be told that's in no way apparent as the production values are quite high.  In addition to the intensity of much of the film, the other standout feature is the quality of the cast.  While many are extremely unlikeable as written the level of the engaging performances are high.  My guess is we'll be seeing a lot of good things coming from both the folks who made this and the folks in it.  In the meantime you can now officially add this to your Netflix queues or head on over to your favorite internet retailers if you'd like to own a copy.