Two Brothers

Review by Clint Morris

Two baby tigers are separated when man invades their terrain and pops a bullet in daddy tiger.

The accountable adventurer (Guy Pearce, playing an Australian, quite surprisingly) takes a shine to one of the cubs, and gives it to an ambassadors son to look after.

The other cub flees with its mother, and in due course, the brothers will meet again – but not before some sheer privation at the hands of man.

Ah, the evil that men do. Within thirty minutes of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s new film, you brute types will have decided not to renew your gun-club membership, book a trip to Africa to pat a tiger and stock-up on lemon lollies to feed them with when you get there.

Yep, Two Brothers is as preachy a film can be. Yet, it deserves to be. You’ll be hardly pressed finding a point of argument in its strong statement about protecting the razor-sharp serrated sovereign of the jungle.

In Annaud’s film, the tigers are killers, and the film doesn’t apologize for that characteristic, but it makes the point that they do deserve to live, much the same way we do. We just have to remember not to invade their terrain.

Gorgeously filmed in the backdrop of Cambodia and Thailand, Annaud’s film is the true embodiment of family entertainment. No cursing, no sex…hardly any violence, it’s as innocent as can be whilst being very, very entertaining.

Best of all - its one-hundred percent authentic. You won’t find one computer-generated tiger in this tale. Akin to his earlier animal hit The Bear, Annaud considers the animal just as much a star as the human – in this case, Guy Pearce – so takes obvious pride in capturing them when they’re at their credible, seething, or as a lot of the case, cutesy, best. Two Brothers is this years The Lion King – equally as moving, similarly captivating.

Funnily enough, the only element that lets the film down from time to time is the human component. It’s not that they don’t have much to do; it’s just that they’ve got dire dialogue and for the most part, their performances come off as stilted as Pinocchio.

3.5 out of 5

Two Brothers
Australian release: Thursday November 25th
Cast: Guy Pearce, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Freddie Highmore, Oanh Nguyen.
Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud.
Website: Click here.

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