An easy-going western as famed sharpshooting assassins the Sisters Brothers are dispatched to the Californian goldfields by the Commodore to deal with one Herman Kermit Warn.
Patrick DeWitt’s award-winning The Sisters Brothers is a gripping, darkly funny and wholly compelling novel. Condensing the sprawling nature of the brothers journey from Oregon in its adaptation for screen, Jacques Audiard cuts to the chase, with brothers Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly quickly catching up with Warn (Riz Ahmed). But not everything is what it seems – resulting in the boys reconsidering their long term prospects.
There’s a great deal lost in translation from page to screen – in particular Eli’s moral and ethical rumination of life as a gunslinger. But, in his first English language feature, Audiard has captured the boisterous, humorous gung-ho of the genre, supported by a great cast and, albeit foreshortened, an offbeat and garrulous storyline.
Rating; 72%
Director: Jacques Audiard (Rust & Bone, A Prophet)
Writer: Jacques Audiard (Rust & Bone, A Prophet), Thomas Bidegain (Rust & Bone, A Prophet) – based on the book by Patrick DeWitt
Main cast: Joaquin Phoenix (Gladiator, Walk the Line), John C. Reilly (Stan & Ollie, Chicago), Riz Ahmed (Venom, The Reluctant Fundamentalist)
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