Film Reviews

The Brothers Grimm

• Rating:
• Director: Terry Gilliam
• Starring: Anna Rust
• Details: US/118mins (PG).

The Grimm brothers, Jacob (Ledger) and Will (Damon) are two con artists who grift naive townspeople out of their hard earned cash by filling them with ghost stories and then offering to dispatch the supernatural interlopers for a high-price fee. Their ruse is rumbled however and they are forced by a French commander (Jonathan Pryce) to rid a small town of a real ghost. The Grimm boys face grim opposition, as an ancient evil queen has cast a spell over the spooky forest she inhabits and thus they must put aside their bogus exorcisms and tackle the deadly foe on her own terms. Mixing humour with horror, The Brothers Grimm is a re-telling of their famous fairy tales; Little Red Riding Hood to Rapunzel to Sleeping Beauty, all the favourites are here but changed slightly to fit Gilliam's manic visual style, which is haunting at times. Damon and Ledger excel as the sparring brothers who have two very different ideals on how to take on this ghost busting business. The back-and-forth dialogue really sparkles and it's a shame the pair don't get more comic roles. Where the movie lets itself down is the middle, as no one has anything to do except wonder what they are going to do, but Gilliam picks it up again towards the end.

Review by Gavin Burke