KDHX Film Review - The Brothers Grimm

Directed by Terry Gilliam
Reviewed by Diane Carson

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Writer/ director Terry Gilliam can boast longevity and diversity—animation from 1969 to 1974 for the unequalled Monty Python and the Flying Circus, writing for the Monty Python feature films, his own Brazil, The Fisher King, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, among others. He also has a reputation for fierce independence and refusal to compromise his vision—which has been a blessing for his artistic integrity and a curse for his difficulty with the Hollywood suits who want to mess with his creation. And yet Gilliam has also, upon occasion, spun a bit wildly out of control with his inventions.

And so to his current film, The Brothers Grimm, starring Heath Ledger and Matt Damon, looking especially ridiculous with his faux early 19th century hair and costume design. And the film suffers from some of the same misjudgment; that is, an abundance of design errors and not sufficient idea development. In fact, the plot seems an unwanted necessity to Gilliam, a distraction from his real enjoyment—an explosive plethora of scatter gun jokes and rapid fire bits of action. The energy put into digressions makes this a energetically complicated instead of a more pleasingly complex film, that is, Brothers Grimm relies on an assault of bits, Monty Python style, and is similarly uneven.

Performances are also bumpy, with some delivered like old-fashioned melodrama with moustaches twirled and others played almost straight. As usual, Gilliam's basic idea is a good one. In a village in French occupied Germany and the nearby enchanted forest, the Brothers Grimm, con men extraordinaire, break spells for a price. And then they encounter a real spell and the disappearance of children. Throw in two annoying assistants, a French general (who seems to have dropped in from another movie set), a beautiful and smart maiden who is great, and a flurry of others running about chaotically. This makes The Brothers Grimm diverting and maddening, wild and pedestrian. Manic energy drives the film forward, but would that Terry Gilliam bursts forth again but with someone to shape the crazily eclectic spewing into an appealingly organized, synthesized project.

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