The Brothers Bloom
2008 Directed by Rian Johnson
Synopsis
They'd never let the truth come between them.
The Brothers Bloom are the best con men in the world, swindling millionaires with complex scenarios of lust and intrigue. Now they've decided to take on one last job - showing a beautiful and eccentric heiress the time of her life with a romantic adventure that takes them around the world.
Cast
Popular reviews
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Director Rian Johnson inhabits a world I very much want to live in. With Brick he created a fascinating take on the noir genre and with the Brothers Bloom he managed to spin one of the best grifter yarns ever. What do they have in common? They're completely off the beaten path and so quirky it is almost impossible not to be sucked in by them into the universe they create.
The Brothers Bloom is essentially a film about conmen. These have been done before, but never like this. There is wonderful, light-hearted comedy, startling intense drama and an overall off-key tone that makes you feel as if you're watching someone else's dream.
The performances are all great, but I…
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9th film of the December Project
My god this is a great film. The way it relentlessly sets things up and pays them off, bringing things back and moving forward... It's absolutely fantastic.
Ruffalo and Brody completes their roles to a dot, playing the smooth, confident con man and the ruffled anti-hero with a touch of existential problems.
Rachel Weisz nails the mild "manic pixie dream girl"-character, never overplaying the sheer joy or eventual sadness she has. She's strange, but never too strange, kind, but never too kind, excited, but never perfect for Brody's character; she's always her own.Rian Johnson's inventiveness and playfulness shows all throughout the film, from the fantastic character of Rinko Kikuchi to the wonderful dialogue.…
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"Well, trying to get something real by telling yourself stories is a trap. Trust me on that one."
It was like a fairy tale with comedy, action and drama and I loved it. The cast is amazing and indeed they did a great job. This is also my first film of Rian Johnson, now I'm looking forward to see Brick and Looper very soon.
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Brick is a good film, but The Brothers Bloom is a great one. It’s full of colour, it has power and it’s just downright hilarious. Adrien Brody takes the lead role as the younger sibling of a two-bit duo of con men with his brother played by Mark Ruffalo, he wants to leave this world and set up a life away from all his lies, but he has just has one more job to do. The premise is simple and if that’s all you heard about Bloom, you’d think it was just your general comedy crime caper, but it’s so much more than that. Full of wonderful visuals and very smart performances all round from its array of talent; Ruffalo,…
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The Brothers Bloom is just so perfectly quirky, romantic, and tragic that it makes my heart physically ache like no other movie ever has. I've thought long and hard, and I can't think of a single movie character more endearing and lovable than Penelope. I'm not sure if that speaks more to Rachel Weisz's abilities as an actress, or more to how well-written this movie is. I'll just accept it as being both of those things converging and leave it at that.
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Rian Johnson goes Wes Anderson, and we're all the better for it.
In addition, this time it's not all style over substance! (though I loved the style in Brick, I just can't love the film. For that I find it too long, complicated and just a bit boring, actually.)
The story's great, the visual motifs are fantastic, it's funny, sweet, sad, it has some great thematic callbacks and the story is really good. This has everything you want from a con movie and more! I pretty much loved it, and will probably love it even more upon rewatches.
Highly recommended.
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I kinda skipped over the Brothers Bloom mistakenly believing I'd already seen it. Most con-man movies tend to blend together after a while. This blended in with Confidence, Matchstick Men and the Nine Queens remake (the name of which escapes me but it starred John C. Reilly).
I ended up adding it to my watchlist after discovering it was the work of Rian Johnson. A director I greatly admired after seeing his debut feature Brick, which is a classic already; full of superb and totally age inappropriate dialogue. When his third movie Looper came out I was very excited but at the same time realised I'd missed his sophomore effort. Brothers Bloom does reek of sophomoric efforts from other directors.…
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A very enjoyable con artist movie that collides with a manic pixie dream girl romance somewhere along the way. Not the most highbrow thing in the world, but a lot of fun to watch.
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I very much enjoy Rian Johnson's films. They are stories unlike any others, delightfully entertaining, and all very different from one another. His use of language (in dialog) is also particularly fun.
The Brothers Bloom is no exception. Fascinating characters, interesting relationships, surprising actions, and a poised and humorous visual style make for a great little heist flick.
I just wish he wasn't so direct with the "about" of his movies. If he could get away from spelling out the meaning, I'd be a huge fan. As it is, I feel like either he thinks he's very smart and wants us to know it or he thinks we're really dumb and need things spelled out for us. Perhaps I'm just too prideful about my own intelligence, but I'm not alone in that, and I think that's what makes his films a little less palatable for a lot of people.
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'Don't give me that blank look, you know what a god damn banana seed is.'
What harms The Brothers Bloom so much is the fact that it clearly doesn't really know what it wants to be. It shifts from a dark comedy to a quirky thriller every ten minutes and manages to make a plot so basic and yet so convoluted it made my head completely spin.
With that all said, the cast is great, some of the humour manages to really 'hit it home' and a surprisingly fantastic performance from Rachel Weisz as an epileptic photographer manages to pull The Brothers Bloom a bit above your average con movie.
But as far as Rian Johnson films go, I'd probably take Looper over this, just saying...if it were me.
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Rian Johnson's second feature, The Brothers Bloom, is a fun and stylish movie, but it doesn't quite live up to his debut Brick. This is much different from Brick, for they seem like they are set in different universes. While Brick feels serious and hard-hitting, The Brothers Bloom seems set in a universe created by Wes Anderson. The characters are infused with charm and the acting is a delight. Brody, Ruffalo, Weisz, and Kikuchi all bring their A game and the result is a charming and lively movie. The movie is a tad too long and seems to loose its footing at times but it is saved by a superb ending.
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'The trick to not feeling cheated is to learn how to cheat.'
The story of two grifter brothers, and the last job they will pull together. Rian Johnson's second film is an almost fantasy con movie. Set in beautifully shot surroundings, and with the clothing the characters wear give the film an almost retro feeling. The story is kept at a nice pace, with many twists and turns, and i know, that she knows, that he knows kind of moments. The acting in the film is very good with especially good performances from Rachel Weisz, giving a wonderful quirky but still quite sophisticated performance, and Mark Ruffalo who is very charming and charismatic in his role. the soundtrack and dialogue…
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Like Wes Anderson directed Ocean's 11
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Quite an enjoyable little fantasy con movie. Of the movies I've recently partaken upon this was certainly the most fun to watch.
The on thing that bugs me though is its inability to settle in a period. You have styles and music that place it in the 30s-40s, then there are quite contemporary vehicles and cellphones that place it after the turn of the century. I guess it comes down to the idea that it's a fantasy.
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A fun little crime caper with some romance infused into it.