Four Brothers wants to be a revenge thriller about four adopted brothers coming home to bury their mother. What it delivers is a loud, messy action movie that spends more time on explosions than on character. John Singleton directs, and David Elliot and Paul Lovett wrote it, but the film feels less like a drama and more like a showcase for four actors who mostly get to fight.
The setup is simple. Evelyn Mercer, an older woman, is murdered at a convenience store in Highland Park, Michigan. Her death draws her four adopted sons back to Detroit, where they learn the killing was not a robbery gone wrong but a hit. They track down the hired guns who did it, execute them, and then spend the rest of the film dodging police while trying to take down Victor Sweet, the gangster who ordered the hit.
Mark Wahlberg plays Bobby Mercer, the oldest brother and a lifelong criminal. Tyrese Gibson plays Angel Mercer, the third oldest and a retired Marine. André 3000 plays Jeremiah Mercer, the second oldest and a family man and construction worker. Garrett Hedlund plays Jack Mercer, the youngest and an aspiring rock musician. The brothers are meant to be distinct, but the script gives each of them barely enough personality to fill a scene.
Trailer, via YouTube Movies.
Bobby and Angel, the Hot-Tempered Fighters
Bobby is supposed to be the hot-tempered one, a former hockey league player with a temper that flares at the slightest provocation. His fights are the most entertaining part of the film, but they rarely feel earned. Angel is the ex-hustler and former Marine, and he shares Bobby’s anger, though the film treats him as more of a sidekick than a full character. Together, they provide most of the film’s physical energy, but their rage feels thin rather than grounded.
The film wants you to believe these men are grieving, but the grief never lands. Their vengeance is swift and brutal, but the film never takes a moment to show what Evelyn’s death means to them beyond the immediate need for blood. The brothers execute the hired guns without hesitation, and the film moves on. There is no pause, no reflection, no weight to the act.
Jeremiah and Jack, the Quiet Ones
Jeremiah is the family man, a construction worker who tries to keep his head down and support his daughters. He discovers that his business is failing because he refused to pay off gang lord Victor Sweet, and the film spends some time on this subplot. But the problem is that the film never makes Jeremiah’s refusal feel like a choice. It feels like a plot device, a way to get him into Sweet’s orbit so that he can later pay off Sweet’s henchmen to save his business.
Jack is the youngest, the aspiring rock musician. He gets the least to do of the four, which is a shame since he could have been the emotional center of the story. Instead, he exists mainly to be dragged along and occasionally sing. The film’s idea of character development for Jack is to show him playing guitar, which is not character development at all.
Lieutenant Green and the Corrupt Detective
Terrence Howard plays Lieutenant Green, the brothers’ old friend turned Police Lieutenant who investigates the murder opposite them. Josh Charles plays Detective Fowler, Green’s partner, who is revealed to be corrupt. These two characters exist to create tension, but the film never gives them enough room to matter. Green is a cop who knows the brothers, which should give the film a moral anchor. Instead, he is sidelined early, and the film becomes a straight revenge picture without much friction.
The corruption subplot is promising, but it is dropped before it can become meaningful. Fowler’s corruption is established early, but the film does not follow through on what that means for the investigation or for Green’s relationship with the brothers. The subplot is a tease, and teases are rarely satisfying.
Victor Sweet and the Hit That Started It All
Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Victor Sweet, the local gangster who filed the hit on Evelyn. He is the closest thing the film has to a villain, and he is the only character who gets any real depth. The film shows that Sweet is running a criminal empire, and he is willing to kill to protect it. But the film does not spend enough time with him to make his actions feel inevitable. He is a target, not a human being.
The hit itself is the engine of the plot. Evelyn is killed, the brothers come home, they find out it was a hit, and they set out to take down Sweet. But the film never explains why Sweet wanted Evelyn dead. The hit is a fact, not a mystery, and the film does not care enough to make it one. It is simply a trigger for the brothers’ vengeance.
The Convenience Store, the Construction Company, the City
The film was shot in Detroit, Michigan; the Greater Toronto Area; and Hamilton, Ontario. Those locations give the film a sense of place, but the film does not use that place to deepen the story. Evelyn is killed in Highland Park, and the brothers return to Detroit, but the city remains a backdrop rather than a character. The film is interested in the brothers and the violence around them, not in the world they inhabit.
There is a tagline for the film: “They came home to bury mom… and her killer.” That captures the film’s ambition. The brothers come home to bury their mother and to kill the man who killed her. But the film fails to deliver on both halves of that promise. The burial is rushed, and the killing is overlong.
The Supporting Cast
The supporting cast is full of talent that the film wastes. Sofía Vergara plays Sofi, Angel’s girlfriend. Taraji P. Henson plays Camille Mercer, Jeremiah’s wife. Barry Shabaka Henley plays Councilman Douglas, a city councilman who closes Jeremiah’s construction company on orders of Sweet. Jernard Burks plays Evan, one of Charlie’s top goons. Kenneth Welsh plays Robert Bradford, Evelyn’s lawyer. Reiya West Downs and Riele West Downs play Daniela and Amelia Mercer, Jeremiah and Camille’s daughters. Kevin Duhaney plays Keenon, a kid whom the brothers interrogate. Lyriq Bent plays Damian, Keenon’s older brother who is in cahoots with Sweet.
None of them get enough screen time to matter. They are names on a poster, not people in the story. The film’s focus is entirely on the four brothers, and even there the focus is too narrow. The result is a film that feels incomplete, as if the director and writers were so eager to get to the action that they forgot to build the world around it.
What Works and What Does Not
The film has a few things going for it. The action sequences are well-choreographed, and the fights are kinetic. The stunts are impressive, and the editing keeps the pace up. The film knows how to stage a fight, even if it does not know how to make one mean anything.
But the action is not enough. A good action movie needs stakes, and Four Brothers has almost none. The brothers are grieving, but the film does not show that grief. The revenge is violent, but the film does not explain why it is necessary. The audience is left watching bodies fall without ever feeling what those bodies represent.
The film also struggles with pacing. At 109 minutes, it should move fast, but it drags in the middle. The investigation into Evelyn’s death is rushed, and the reveal about Sweet’s hit is underexplained. The film jumps from Evelyn’s murder to the brothers executing the hired guns to the brothers hiding from the police, and it never slows down to let the audience catch its breath.
Ranking the Brothers
If you had to rank the four brothers by how well the film serves them, the order would look like this:
- Bobby and Angel — they get the most to do, and their fights are the film’s strongest moments.
- Jeremiah — he gets a subplot about his failing business, but it is underdeveloped.
- Jack — he gets the least to do, and the film barely remembers he exists.
- The brothers as a group — the film cannot sustain four leads, and the script keeps cutting corners.
This ranking is not a compliment. It is a description of a film that cannot handle its own cast.
The Verdict on Four Brothers
Four Brothers is a film that knows how to blow things up but does not know how to make those explosions matter. The brothers are supposed to be the heart of the story, but the film never gives them enough to do to make that heart beat. Wahlberg, Gibson, 3000 and Hedlund are all capable actors, and they give what they can, but the script does not ask for much beyond physicality.
The film’s failure is structural. It sets up a revenge plot but does not follow through on the grief that should drive it. The brothers are angry, but the film never shows what they are angry about. The hit on Evelyn is a fact, not a wound, and the film never lets the brothers sit with that fact.
The film is also tonally inconsistent. It wants to be a serious revenge thriller, but it keeps leaning toward the absurd. The brothers are violent, but they are also often funny, and the film does not decide which tone to commit to. This inconsistency undermines the film’s attempts at gravity, leaving it feeling scattered rather than focused.
There is a reason the film grossed $92 million worldwide. That number is not a measure of quality. It is a measure of marketing and spectacle. The film is loud, and audiences responded to that. But loud is not the same as good, and the film never earns the respect of its own audience.
The film’s legacy is that it proved John Singleton could make an action movie, but it did not prove he could make a good one. The directing is competent, the action is staged well, but the story is hollow. The brothers are not people so much as a vessel for violence.
Four Brothers is a film that wants to be remembered for its action, but it will be remembered for its failures. It is a film that asks the audience to root for vengeance without giving the audience a reason to care. The brothers come home to bury their mother and her killer, but the film never lets the audience feel the loss that brought them home.
Four Brothers is a disappointment. It has pieces of a good film — a strong cast, kinetic action, a premise that could have been gripping — but it never puts those pieces together in a way that coheres. The final score is 4.9 out of 10.
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