Film Review: The Brooklyn Brothers Beat The Best

The Brooklyn Brothers Beat The Best

Life is about the journey, not the destination, and ‘The Brooklyn Brothers Beat The Best’ shares this vision wholeheartedly.

Essentially a quirky road trip movie, it follows Alex, played by Ryan O’Nan, (who also wrote and directed the movie), a down-and-out wannabe musician, and Jim (Michael Weston), a self-confessed ‘music revolutionary’, on a crisis-induced road trip across the States.

Along the way they pick up Cassidy (Arielle Kebbel), a girl bored with her life. Their ultimate goal, to get to the ‘Battle of the Bands’.

We get a chance to see the characters develop, Alex is a depressed failing musician whose highlight is “punching a retarded kid in the face”, and Jim is a super- positive, childlike, whimsical character.

There are moments of self-realisation and your are placed right in the middle of their lives. It can get dark and depraved, but it’s also delightfully comedic.

Cassidy remarks their music sounds “Like something David Bowie would write when he was 6”. In reality, the soundtrack also written by O’Nan to accompany the movie is well worth searching out.

eight out of ten
It’s a bit like a post-modern 21st century version of The Blues Brothers, or as Jim would say, this film is “as real as syphilis”.

The Brooklyn Brothers Beat The Best is out on 20th July 2012

Hana Karlasen

Hana Karlasen – English and Creative Writing graduate. Loves books, films, Mega Drive games and useless facts. Did you know that humans share about 50% of our DNA with a banana?