My Brother (2006)

User Rating:

4.9/10   

Director:

Anthony Lover

Writer:

Anthony Lover (writer)

Release Date:

16 March 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Two Brothers, One Soul

Plot:

"My Brother" is an inner city story of two impoverished boys, Isaiah and James. James is developmentally disabled...

Plot Keywords:

Package | Disability | Beautiful Woman | Stand Up Comedian | Flashback Sequence

Awards:

3 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Vanessa Williams	...	L'Tisha Morton
Tatum O'Neal	...	Erica Walters
Nashawn Kearse	...	Isaiah Morton
Christopher Scott	...	James Morton
Rodney Henry	...	Young Isaiah Morton (as Rodney Henry Jr.)
Donovan Jennings	...	Young James Morton
Fredro Starr	...	Pharaoh
Talent Harris	...	Joey - Comedy Store (as MC 'Talent' James Harris)
Eric Michael Gillett	...	Adoption Administrator
Michael Luggio	...	Mr. Vincent
Brian Delate	...	Mr. Roland
Basil Pologianis	...	Amir
Nasser Metcalf	...	Fazul
Danny Johnson	...	Reverend Franklin
Roger Shamas	...	Rasime

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for violence, some disturbing images and language.

Runtime:

USA:100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:PG-13 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Angel Baby Entertainment

Movie Connections:

Featured in Two Special Brothers (2006) (V)

Soundtrack:

Life of the Party

Bad beyond words

This movie is so bad in so many ways I don't know where to begin. It's barely over 90 minutes but it feels like hours.

When I saw the movie, I was thinking: OK, this is really bad, but I can forgive it a little bit since it's the director working out some very personal family history. Then, after reading the reviews here, I realize the director is white. WTF?! It would still be bad, but I could understand the false dialog, the trite treatment of the disabled and the stupid non-plot if it was a bad writer/director who was too close to the material.

But from an outsider, all that plus the offensive racial stereotypes are bad beyond words. It's hard to pick the worst. Is it Vanessa Williams "don't beat up women" speech? I think it's the drawn out "white woman in a black club" scene. Who has TB except drug addicts and inmates? I could go on for pages.

It reminded me of a review of Spike Lee's "She Hate Me" that said something like "This movie is a complete failure, but it fails in a magnificent way, in a way that only a genius could fail". This movie was the opposite. It fails in a way that exposes the complete lack of talent of the director/writer.

The leads, Vanessa Williams and NaShawn Kearse, deserve better material than this. By rights, they should have treated the script with contempt. I have to give them credit, they do the best they can with the crap they're given to work with. Likewise, Fredro Starr's performance is so much better than the script.