“The Sisters Brothers” is a slow-burning Western that turns a chase across the American frontier into a meditation on violence, brotherhood and the price of ambition. Directed by Jacques Audiard, the film is adapted from Patrick deWitt’s novel and stars John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix as the titular assassins. It’s a strange beast: a comedy-drama that never quite decides whether it wants to be a grim thriller or a tender portrait of two lost souls.
The premise is simple. In 1851, the Commodore hires the Sisters brothers to capture Hermann Kermit Warm, a chemist who has invented a formula for extracting gold from ore. Warm is traveling to California with a wagon train, and the brothers are told to bring him back alive so he can be tortured for the secret. What starts as a routine assignment becomes a road trip through a landscape that seems determined to kill them all.
Trailer, via ANNAPURNA.
Eli and Charlie
Reilly plays Eli Sisters, the older brother who is both the brains of the operation and a man haunted by his past. Phoenix plays Charlie, the younger brother who is quick with a gun but slower with a thought. Together they are a unit, bound by blood and duty, but separated by temperament. Reilly’s performance is the anchor of the film. He gives Eli a weary sadness, a man who knows he’s doing wrong but can’t stop. Phoenix is the wild card. His Charlie is a man-child, a drinker and a fighter who wears his heart on his sleeve. The chemistry between them is the engine that drives the movie.
Warm and Morris
Riz Ahmed plays Warm as a quiet genius, a man who believes he can change the world with science. Jake Gyllenhaal plays John Morris, a private detective who is hired by the Commodore to track Warm down and hand him over to the Sisters. Morris finds Warm traveling with the wagon train and befriends him, but Warm eventually realizes that Morris is working for the Commodore. The betrayal sets the plot in motion, and the film spends its runtime following the brothers as they chase the fugitives across the country.
The Road to San Francisco
The journey is the story. The film moves at a deliberate pace, pausing often to let the characters breathe. There are scenes of the brothers sleeping in tents, arguing over food, and staring at the horizon. These moments are not filler. They establish a rhythm that makes the action feel earned when it arrives.
One of the best sequences involves a grizzly bear that attacks their camp, mauling Eli’s horse. Later, Eli swallows a spider in his sleep and falls ill. Charlie, meanwhile, is constantly drunk, too hungover to ride. These setbacks keep the brothers off balance and make their pursuit feel genuine. The film is not interested in spectacle. It’s interested in character.
Mayfield’s Hotel
When the brothers finally catch up to Warm and Morris in the town of Mayfield, the film shifts into a tense standoff. Mayfield runs a hotel and brothel, and she denies having seen the fugitives. A sympathetic prostitute warns Eli of an impending attack, and the brothers attempt to flee with Charlie still drunk. They are cornered by Mayfield’s gunslingers, whom they kill and rob. The interrogation of Mayfield is brutal, and the film doesn’t flinch from showing the violence. It’s a dark moment, but it’s also a necessary one. The brothers have spent the entire film chasing a man they don’t know, and now they have to face the consequences of their actions.
The Final Stretch in San Francisco
In San Francisco, Charlie and Eli argue about whether to continue the hunt. Eli wants to retire. Charlie is more committed. The tension between them reaches a peak, and the film resolves the conflict in a way that feels inevitable. The ending is not a happy one, but it’s a fitting one. The brothers have lived their lives according to a code, and now that code has failed them. The film doesn’t offer redemption. It offers only the truth of who they are.
The Soundtrack and the Setting
The film’s score is a mix of period music and ambient sound. It’s not intrusive, but it sets the tone. The settings are rich. The wagon train, the desert, the mountains, the city. Each location feels lived-in, and the cinematography captures the vastness of the American West. The film is a visual poem, and it deserves credit for that.
The Critics and the Box Office
“The Sisters Brothers” received positive reviews from critics. Most praise went to the performances, the characters, the direction and the soundtrack. The film was a box office bomb, grossing $14.1 million against its $38 million production budget. That’s a failure by any measure, but it speaks to the film’s ambition. It’s a slow, thoughtful piece of cinema that wasn’t built for mass audiences. It was built for people who want to think while they watch.
The Commodore
Rutger Hauer plays the Commodore, the wealthy man who hires the brothers. His performance is restrained, but powerful. He brings a sense of menace to the role, and his presence looms over the entire story.
The Verdict
“The Sisters Brothers” is a flawed but fascinating film. It’s slow, and it’s sometimes too talky. But it’s also smart, funny and deeply human. The performances carry it, and the direction keeps it grounded. It’s a Western that doesn’t romanticize its subject. It shows the dirt, the blood and the boredom. It’s a rare thing: a big-budget Hollywood film that feels independent.
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| World premiere | 2 September 2018, Venice International Film Festival |
| US release | 21 September 2018 |
The film won the Silver Lion for Best Direction at Venice. That’s a significant achievement for Audiard, who made his first English-language work with this film. It’s a reminder that the director is a major talent, even if the film didn’t connect with audiences.
The film’s failure is not necessarily a reflection of its quality. It’s a reflection of the marketplace. Audiences want instant gratification, and “The Sisters Brothers” isn’t interested in giving them that. It’s a film that rewards patience, and patience is a rare commodity in today’s cinema.
The film is a love letter to the Western genre, but it’s also a critique of it. It shows the violence that underlies the myth. It shows the loneliness. It shows the men who do terrible things for money and the men who try to escape. It’s a complex picture, and it deserves to be seen.
It’s a film that will be rediscovered. It’s a film that will be studied. It’s a film that will be remembered as one of the best Westerns of its decade. It’s a film that should have done better commercially, but it doesn’t need to be defended. It speaks for itself.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
