TIFF 2018: The Sisters Brothers Review

Dylan PhillipsSeptember 10, 20185924 min

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. If you would like to keep up with our content, click here.

Synopsis: In the Old West, an Oregon criminal known as the Commodore sends gunslinging brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters to find and kill chemist Hermann Warm and retrieve his moneymaking formula. Complications soon arise when John Morris, a detective who is supposed to help the siblings, joins forces with Hermann for a business venture. (Annapurna Pictures)

Starring: John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, and Jake Gyllenhaal

Writers: Jacques Audiard and Thomas Bidegain

Director: Jacques Audiard

Rating: R (United States)

Running Time: 121 mins

Trailer: 

The Sisters Brothers is an unconventional western that attempts to reinvent the genre by taking its stereotypical macho persona and humanizing it. While the film lacks the expected level of action and finds itself lost in some long, empty setup, the core story has some touching moments that are helped by some stellar performances and sublime cinematography making for a fun, yet thought-provoking, character study set in the Old West. This film is too light to be a Coen Brothers or Tarantino style dark comedy, but it is too heavy to be in the same vein of Blazing Saddles. It creates its own style between the two in a modernized Western dramedy.

Score: 7.5/10

*full review coming soon*

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