The Brothers Grimm was delayed almost a year because of battling between director Terry Gilliam and the studio over the identity and direction of the film. I can't say who won but I know we lost: Gilliam weaves a rich tapestry from the famed fairy tales, but he cannot keep the various strands from becoming entangled or unraveled. The result is that The Brothers Grimm, though sometimes a sight to behold, is a hopelessly muddled affair.
Heath Ledger and Matt Damon play the titular brothers Grimm (Jake and Will, respectively). Tragedy struck the duo at a young age, when their sister dies of sickness principally because Jake is fooled into selling the family cow for a handful of magic beans.
Now grown, the brothers travel the countryside as fakers, tricking the local folk into paying them to destroy evil spirits and witches, which the brothers themselves orchestrate. The venture goes swimmingly until a French general captures them. The general tasks them with discovering the truth about a small village, whose young girls have been disappearing, by the side of an ominous wood. When Jake and Will arrive at the village, they soon discover they might be in over their heads; but, with the help of a cursed but very capable woman, the two try to solve the mystery.
From the beginning, Gilliam works in elements of the fairy tales we all remember, from Jack and the Beanstalk to The Princess and the Pea. Unfortunately, the references and allusions feel forced and haphazard. For instance, a sub-plot concerning a wolf doesn't make any sense outside an attempt to shoehorn elements of Little Red Riding Hood into the story. Likewise, other bits and pieces of tales pass before the eye without much purpose and without much effect.
The cast does mostly a good job with the material. Ledger and Damon enjoy good chemistry as the two brothers and Lena Headey does well as the romantic interest. The strange exception is Jonathan Pryce as the French general Delatombe. A veteran of several Gilliam films (most notably Brazil), he just doesn't seem to click with the material here. Peter Stormare plays Deletombe's lackey, Cavaldi, a role he's played in many shapes and forms in many other movies. Not to be forgotten, Monica Bellucci is gorgeous as the villain queen.
Article comments
1 - RJ
I liked this review. I'm still interested in viewing this film, despite your not-very-positive opinion of it...
2 - The Errant Fool
Thanks for the kind words.
There are some things to like about the film, particularly if you're a Gilliam fan, just not enough good, in my opinion, to overshadow the miscues and mistakes.
Still, this is one of those films I'd probably by on DVD because 1) a "director's cut" might arise to fix some of the theatrical faults and 2) on video, I can skip the bits that don't work.