Film Reviews

Two Brothers

• Rating:
• Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
• Starring: Freddie Highmore
• Details: US / 105 mins / (12PG).

Writer/director Jean-Jacques Annaud (Enemy at the Gates) lays it on a little thick with this family-driven nature film. The title refers to a pair of Indochina tigers, Kumal and Sangha, who are separated soon after their birth and are brought up in wildly different sets of circumstances. Sangha is domesticated by the family of the local French administrator, with the only child Raoul (Freddie Highmore) establishing a strong bond with the beast. Meanwhile, his brother, Kumal, suffers a more traumatic upbringing, sentenced to a life of performing in a travelling circus. So where does Guy Pearce figure in all of this Disney-lite action? Well he plays legendary big game hunter and author, Aidan McRory, who plays a major part in both tigers' lives and eventually comes to regret his actions.

Though gorgeously made and featuring astounding performances (if that's what you'd call them) from the pair of tigers, Two Brothers is a little too lightweight and dramatically underwhelming to set the pulse racing. Perhaps more damning, however, is Arnaud's eagerness in ascribing human emotions to the animals, while leaving his human actors, chief amongst them Guy Pearce, looking lost with little to do other than fill in the gaps in the rights of passage tale.

Review by Garreth Murphy