Posts Tagged ‘Kiefer Sutherland’

^{Brothers Under Fire}

Director: Justin Chadwick

Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Ashton Sanders, Solly Macleod, Tommy Martinez, Omar Chapparro, Laura Osma, Orlando Pineda, Fredy Yate, James Keach

Running Time: 1 hour 39 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

British director Justin Chadwick who brought cinema goers such films as Tulip Fever, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, The First Grader and The Other Boleyn Girl returns to the big screen with the Highland Film Group’s action film Brothers Under Fire starring Kiefer Sutherland (Phone Booth, Melancholia) as battle weary American army captain Jordan Wright.

Wright joins his army squadron on a special trip to a wedding in Mexico whereby Roberto played by Tommy Martinez is to marry Isabella played by Laura Osma. The squadron includes Danny, Lieutenant Carlson played by Ashton Sanders (Moonlight, I Wanna Dance with Somebody) and Orlando Pineda as Miguel.

The night of the wedding during the festivities one of the soldiers Danny played by Sonny Macleod has an altercation with a petulant cartel drug deputy whose brother is the vicious cartel leader who feels nothing at executing a whole village full of people including women and children.

Justin Chadwick captions Brothers Under Fire by showing an opening sequence in Syria whereby the squadron are bonding after a heated battle and they take a photo of the 5 of them before Roberto invites them to his Mexican wedding.

The wedding becomes a bloody affair as the cartel boss’s brother is killed and then the American squadron are under fire when the cartel goes after them and the rest of Roberto and Isabella’s village. This ultimately leads to a good old fashioned showdown in a town square.

Most of Brothers Under Fire was shot in Colombia and unfortunately the director does not give the viewer a proper sense of location, so one is not sure if the action is set in Mexico or Colombia. Either way its set in a poverty stricken Latin America country whereby the drug cartels have taken over and are terrorising the local population.

Jordan Wright well played by Kiefer Sutherland encourages his men, the original squadron to protect these people from this vile drug cartel resulting in a riveting bullet riddled showdown.

If audiences like a straight forward action film with no frills then Brothers Under Fire is recommended viewing. There is a surprising plot twist but ultimately the final showdown comes with sacrifice and an effortless display of bravado. With all violence, it’s the women and children that are left to survive after the devastation.

Brothers Under Fire gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is a worthy action film featuring machismo, murder and mayhem. The final showdown is something to behold.

This is a standard action film, which stays true to the genre and will definitely find a loyal audience.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Director: Mira Nair

Cast: Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, Liev Schreiber, Martin Donovan, Riz Ahmed, Om Puri

Indian director Mira Nair’s elegant and gripping film adaptation of the brilliant Mohsin Hamid novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a riveting tale of cross cultural clashes which occur when a wealthy Pakistani Changez, played by Riz Ahmed goes abroad and studies at Princeton and then pursues a cutthroat career in global economics at a prestige New York firm, Underwood Samson.

Hamid’s novel takes place as a dialogue between Changez confessing his love affair with America  to a yet unidentified man at a cafe in Lahore amidst growing tensions in the wake of 9/11 and America’s war on terror in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan. It is an elegant and evocative tale of how Changez, was offered the American dream on a platter and then see it disintegrate before his eyes under the horrific aftermath of the Manhattan terror attacks. In the midst of his shifting view of the American dream, from being strip search at JFK to being humiliated in America’s corporate and artistic worlds, Changez’s embarks on a cross cultural relationship with a liberated Upper East side conceptual artist Erica.

Nair’s well crafted film version of The Reluctant Fundamentalist differs in parts to Hamid’s novel, exploring the inherent dangers of pursuing a Capitalist dream in a Western society which turns its back on you, in the wake of a Terrorist attack and the resulting shifts in American and Pakistani  perspectives. The film delicately portrays the backlash suffered by many American Muslims living and working  in the US, particularly New York in the aftermath of 9/11.

Changez as one of the bright young stars, recruited directly out of Princeton for the international corporate fixer agency Underwood Samson by the sexually ambivalent Jim Cross as his mentor, gorgeously underplayed by Kiefer Sutherland (Flatliners, The Sentinel), is sent on global excursions from Manila to Atlanta to Istanbul to assist companies in downsizing their labour force and maximizing profits with their corporate maxim being focus on the fundamentals.

At the start of his professional Manhattan career, Changez meets the dynamic and liberated Erica and soon embarks in a passionate affair. In Hamid’s novel , this complex romance is evocatively  told as part of Changez’s confessions to a supposed stranger at the Lahore cafe. In Nair’s film version this doomed relationship reaches a climax in a particularly poignant scene at a swish Manhattan gallery opening when Erica’s displays her vision of conceptual art and inspired by her own relationship with Changez through the title: I slept with a Pakistani once.

I slept with a Pakistani once.

Erica, awkwardly played by an auburn haired Kate Hudson (Nine, The Skeleton Key), unburdens her own guilt by embarking on a rebound affair, as a way of dealing with the sudden death of her boyfriend Chris of which she was the supposed cause. While the relationship between Changez and Erica is not as well sketched out in the film, the ambivalent dialogue in the Lahore cafe is fully realized in the scenes between Changez and Bobby Lincoln an experienced CIA operative played by Liev Schrieber (Defiance, Salt and the excellent TV series Ray Donovan) who is trying to get vital information out of him about a suspected Al Qaeda kingpin operating in Pakistan, whilst also suspecting him of masterminding an established or imagined terror network.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist expertly delves into the disillusion of the American dream from a Pakistani perspective. Like other Mira Nair films always with a flair for the dramatic most notably Vanity Fair and the award winning Monsoon Wedding has stunning  production values, compliments this visually rich film with a wonderfully evocative soundtrack.

The film’s script by Ami Boghani intelligently explores the common ties of humanity despite different cultures and the journeys of self discovery required to fully appreciate the fundamentals of a fulfilled existence. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a an ultimately flawed but brilliantly told international thriller which is better appreciated if viewers have first read the novel. Recommended viewing.