Brother

Takeshi Kitano's Brother (2000) has an interesting premise: Kitano mixing yakuza and American organized crime through his deadpan comedy. He plays a notorious Japanese gangster who has to go to USA in order to avoid being killed. There he intends to gain power for his brother's small and pathetic gangster group.

Kitano avoids focusing on the details of how he rises to power and instead focuses on the humor and what comes afterwards. The rougher-than-sandpaper comedy simply does not work here. It is only amusing on a few occasions because Omar Epps is able to lighten up the silly English dialogue. Characters come and go quite chaotically. Sometimes it seems like Kitano is trying to establish an emotional connection with the audience, but he utterly fails because he either lets the humor run wild or the sentimental bits fall apart due to horrendous writing.

Kitano's "offbeat" cinematography and editing work in a satisfying way, but Hisaishi's musical score is awfully used because it does not fit to the dry comical tone at all. Kitano's and Epps' performance are fine, but they are the only actors given proper roles - the other characters are so uncharacterized or distracting that the actors can't do anything to save the script.

Brother could have become a fine film, but Kitano lost himself along the way.

Score: 5 out of 10