Peter Dinklage and Josh Brolin swiftly snap comedy caper into shape

While odd-couple crime comedy Brothers might have benefited from a leaner, meaner approach, it snaps into shape thanks to Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage, writes Leigh Paatsch.

From an odd-couple comedy caper, to a unique home-grown animation and an Oscar-winning veteran literally killing it, there’s plenty of quality options on the big and small screen this week.

BROTHERS (M)

Cath (Glenn Close), Moke (Josh Brolin), and Jady (Peter Dinklage) in Brothers.Picture: Tina Rowden/Prime Video

Director: Max Barbakow (Palm Springs)

Starring: Josh Brolin, Peter Dinklage, Glenn Close, Brendan Fraser

Rating: ★★★

There are bros and cons everywhere you look

To its credit, the new caper comedy Brothers allows the most obvious joke in its screenplay to go more or less untold.

One look at supposed siblings Moke (Josh Brolin) and Jady (Peter Dinklage) immediately has you wondering: how the heck could these two hail from the same mother?

Moke is built very much in the gentle-giant mold, and is slower on the uptake than most people you may meet. Particularly those who specialise in the cracking of safes, like Moke has from an early age.

As for Jady, he resides somewhat closer to the ground. However, he’s just the kind of fast-talking, quick-thinking kind of guy whose services you might call on should you happen to have a shonky scheme in mind.

And the mother of these disparate desperados? That would be Cath (Glenn Close).

She has been what most would call an absentee parent to her two boys. But that comes with the territory when you’re a notorious jewel thief who’s been wanted by the law for over three decades.

Brothers is one of those kooky crime movies where the complications are going to be stacked-up sky-high. Picture: Prime

If you are sensing Brothers could be one of those kooky crime movies where the complications are going to be stacked-up sky-high, you are absolutely correct.

In fact, there is more than one occasion where it feels like the filmmakers are trying too hard to keep too many storytelling plates spinning at the same time.

Without giving too much away, it won’t be too hard to identify where Brothers might have benefited from a leaner, meaner approach.

Just take a closer look at any scene involving Brendan Fraser as the corrupt prison officer who wants a cut of Jady and Moke’s next job. Fraser’s continual mugging and shouty line readings undercut the movie time and time again. (It’s almost hard to believe now the same guy won a Best Actor Oscar less than two years ago.)

However, when the focus is purely on Dinklage and Brolin, Brothers swiftly snaps back to the shape it should have held all along.

Dinklage remains a fascinating actor, always able to establish the essence of a character in a matter of seconds. Brolin takes a little longer than usual to hit his stride here – largely as a result of playing so radically against his usual type – but soon rises to the occasion.

Brothers premieres on Amazon Prime Video from Friday

MEMOIR OF A SNAIL (M)

A scene from Memoir of a Snail, a stop-motion animation directed by Adam Elliot, who won an Oscar for his 2003 short film Harvie Krumpet.

Rating: ★★★½

General release

The clay-mated output of Australian Oscar-winning filmmaker Adam Elliott employs a visual style that is as irresistibly striking as it is playful. However, there is a substance and weight to Elliott’s work that has nothing to do with merely charming an audience. Movies as completely realised as Memoir of a Snail demand and earn nothing less than a viewer’s complete attention.

Sarah Snook voices the lead role of Grace Puddle, a reclusive woman looking back on the moments that prompted her to retreat back into her shell. The collapse of her family at an early age – sending Grace and her beloved brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) into foster homes on opposite sides of Australia – definitely plays a part in accelerating our heroine’s emotional exile. But so does Grace’s lifelong knack for inviting the wrong people into her world at exactly the wrong time. Thank heavens, then, for her late-breaking friendship with a cantankerous old biddy named Pinky (Jacki Weaver).

A near-bleak, near-black comedy of sorts, this is not the kind of animated fare that happens along very often. Snook’s delightful vocal performance must be singled out here, particularly for her handling of lines which shine welcome light on Elliott’s underrated abilities as a writer. Co-stars the voices of Eric Bana, Magda Szubanksi.

ASSASSIN’S PLAN (MA15+)

Michael Keaton and Al Pacino in Assassin's Plan.

Rating: ★★★

General release

Not only is this the second movie to be directed by Michael Keaton. It is also the second time the veteran star has directed himself playing an accomplished hit man. (It could be argued no-one saw the first one, The Merry Gentlemen, so why not try again?) Anyway, whatever his reasoning might be, Keaton the director constructs his movie with a measured and unhurried confidence, safe in the knowledge that Keaton the actor will deliver a carefully crafted performance of the highest calibre.

He plays Knox, a high-priced hit man about to be cut down by an aggressive case of dementia. In fact, it is isn’t long after meeting him that we learn Knox has little more than a fortnight left before his powers of recall are disconnected forever. While the LA cops start noticing Knox in ways they never did before – is he getting sloppy, or is it a case of mistaken identity? – the once-calculating killer breaks his own rules by accepting one last job involving a close relative.

Though very much a slow-burner of a thriller, be assured where there is smoke, there definitely is fire. Co-stars James Marsden.

Originally published as Peter Dinklage and Josh Brolin swiftly snap comedy caper into shape