Two Brothers (Full Screen Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Loved it!! - But not easy to watch.
Review: This is one of those movies that tugs at your heart from beginning to end. I tend to be more "emotional" - and I love animals - so I think I cried through 95% of my first viewing. I think it is pretty awful how much pain animals suffer at the hands of man. This film makes you think.

But, once the tears had dried, I realized how much I enjoyed this movie. The tigers are just amazing. The characters are real. It is touted as a "family film" but due to the sensitive nature, I'd definitely watch it before allowing a young or emotional child to view it... or watch it with him/her. There may be some tears - but the story does portray important lessons.

I just purchased the DVD and I think this is now one of my favorite all time movies. Few other films have touched me in such a way.

Rating:
Summary: Quite lovely to look at.
Review: Two Brothers (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 2004)

Annaud and Alain Godard, who previously teamed up for Enemy at the Gates three years previous, return with a story about two tigers. The result is less a film than it is a nature documentary with Guy Pearce (Memento) as a hunter.

The real reason to watch Two Brothers is the nature-documentary footage. Both the cubs and the adult tigers in Two Brothers are quite simply fun to watch when together, and Annaud takes full advantage of this, setting them in lovely dioramas that show them off, both in the wild and in civilization. (There's a particularly wonderful scene with film producer Xavier Castano, on screen for the first time in twenty-two years, driving a meat truck.) The story surrounding the footage isn't exactly award-winning stuff, but serves its purpose as a way for Annaud to get in as much tiger footage as he can. The two tiger cubs are taken separately into captivity after a hunter/statue smuggler (Pearce) kills their father. Pearce's character takes one, but is separated from it after being arrested fir smuggling. The other ends up in the house of the prison administrator (Jean-Claude Dreyfus, perhaps best remembered by American audiences as the butcher in the wonderful Jeunet/Caro flick Delicatessen) as a pet for his son, Raoul (Freddie Highmore, who has Charlie's role in the upcoming remake of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory). The story revolves around the two's separation, then reunion as adults.

Despite lots of footage of cute tiger cubs and the film's advance press, some parents might want to reconsider viewing this as a family film. There's a good deal of violence, with people attacking animals and vice-versa. This tends to make it a stringer film than the usual animals-never-hurt-people-and-people-should-never-hurt-animals lovefest, but some of the violence may be a little on the intense side for younger viewers.

Overall, though, a lovely piece of work, and well worth seeing. *** ½

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Incredible!!!
Review: Two Brothers is one of the best films I've ever seen. The tigers deserve and Academy Award for the performance! Being very sensitive to animals, this was very hard for me to watch the first couple of times. They don't show a lot of the cruel parts but you know they're happening and that is hard enough. It is very sad to know that even though this is fiction, humans really do such cruel things to these majestic animals.
There are many beautiful, touching and funny scenes. This movie really makes me laugh and cry. Highly recommended even for children, because children should not be igorant. I don't mean to make this sound just like a documentary! It is really a wonderful movie!!!!!