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Four street-tough boys were adopted and brought up by Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan) a fine and
respected lady in the Detroit area.
Grown up, Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), Angel (Tyrese Gibson), and Jack (Garret Hedlund) moved away to seek their fortune, while Jeremiah (Andre Benjamin) stayed, took care of their mom and went into business. Unexpectedly Evelyn becomes a fatal victim of a random shooting in the robbery of a grocery story. Bobby, Jack and Angel come home to be with Jeremiah for the sad occasion. In the time they have been home, they feel that not enough is being done about their mom's murder. Although friend Lt. Green (Terence Howard) tells them to let the police take care of it, the brothers are not content. They decide to hunt the killers. In the process they discover that their mom's death was no accident.
Four Brothers started
out with some interesting details, like a white woman adopting two white and two black boys for whom she could not find foster homes, that they grew up in her care and fared
reasonably well in life. It turns out that is just the introduction. The rest of the two-hour screen time is dedicated to tracking down Evelyn's killers.
Whoever gets in the way of their search is brutally treated. There are violent confrontation throughout with the mobsters and even the law enforcers. Because of the way the story goes, it is not easy to pinpoint the brains behind the killing. The acting is sufficiently convincing, especially that of Andre Benjamin as Jeremiah.
The whole movie works around the subject of violence. The four Mercer brothers, though
having made their life reasonably straight and sufficiently well, suddenly revert to the street toughness of their youth, and they go into a rampage. Their tremendous love
for their sweet, kind, caring, understanding mom appear to make them feel justified to go into a wild rampage, to assuage their anger and grief.
Bobby appears to be the leader here, as the one who has never been able to curb his violent streaks. So the series of cold blooded killings, with a whole band of gangster shot dead. Bobby, Jack, Jerry and Angel had some discussion about what their mother would want them to do: She would have forgiven the killers, so they should. Comes back the reply: "We can't all be saints" from Bobby who has tattooed on his back "No Mercy". Revenge is never justified under any circumstances. However, Bobby, Jeremiah and Angel go scot-free after the massacre of the whole gang of crooks, which could hardly be disguised as an act of self-defense. But that is how the cops decided to see it in this stressful story.
(Date Reviewed: 03 November 2005)
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