Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

The Sisters Brothers Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 6, 2019

How can you not like a film that owes at least part of its genesis to a series of Time-Life Books? If you’re anything like me (which you understandably may not want to admit), it’s well nigh impossible. As I maybe only somewhat sheepishly disclosed in our Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Concerts Blu- ray review, I am a Time-Life junkie of sorts, having scooped up both books and recordings issued by the once venerable publishing firm since I was a kid, and admittedly being just a tad obsessive compulsive about managing to aggregate “complete collections” of any given set. I never did go for Time-Life’s Old West set of volumes, however, and it’s that set, or more accurately one of the volumes in that set, which evidently first gave author Patrick deWitt the idea for the source novel that in turn gave birth to The Sisters Brothers (you can read about deWitt’s garage sale find here). There’s another reason why some folks who either live in the Pacific Northwest (as I do), or are at least interested in its pioneer history, might like the film, and that’s due to The Sisters Brothers' kind of cool if fleeting references to a couple of arguably lesser known Oregon locations. These include Oregon City, a smallish burg a few miles south of Portland that was one of the state’s oldest encampments (it was reportedly the first city west of the Rocky Mountains to be incorporated) and which was in fact the capital of the Oregon Territory for a few years. It’s considerably less “prominent” now, though it has a certain "old school" charm, not to mention the scenic attraction of Willamette Falls, a cascading flow of water that was one major reason the town was so successful in its early years, becoming home to several paper mills. There's also action that takes place in Jacksonville, which is a good deal further south (by Medford) and which still offers a really quaint downtown area that harkens back to an earlier era, if perhaps not quite as early as the timeframe for The Sisters Brothers. Classical music fans may also know of Jacksonville courtesy of its annual Britt Festival.

The Time-Life Old West series may well have featured a couple of characters like Eli (John C. Reilly) and Charlie Sisters (Joaquin Phoenix), though it’s likely they would have been in a volume about scoundrels and villains, as the two are hired hitmen for guy known only as The Commodore (Rutger Hauer). The film begins with an interesting sequence that sees the Brothers’ “handiwork” go seriously awry, with some terrifying after effects (one hopes that the shot of a horse on fire was not a practical effect, and, yes, that’s a joke). This is the first of a couple of scenes where director Jacques Audiard frames things from a considerable distance, and furthermore this particular sequence takes place in the dead of night, which means the western film trope of a violent shootout looks considerably different here, with little bursts of light indicating bullets on their trajectory, but not much else being visible. It gives the film an appropriately off kilter opening, an askew feeling that will arguably only increase as things go along.

With that mission only “successful” due to the fact that everyone was killed, The Commodore evidently insists on Charlie taking over a “lead man” position in any further escapades, this despite the fact that Charlie is shown to be something of a wastrel and prone to getting so drunk that he can’t stay on his horse. That of course leads to a bit of sibling rivalry from Eli, though the two almost immediately take off on their next “assignment”, which is to meet up with another enforcer of The Commodore’s, a “tracker” named John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal) who himself has been tasked by The Commodore with finding a chemist named Hermann Warm (Riz Ahmed). Morris is to deliver Warm to the Sisters Brothers, who in turn are supposed to kill him, supposedly for stealing from The Commodore. Of course, all is not as it seems.

What’s kind of odd about The Sisters Brothers is how it darts off on a number of really odd, and at times arguably unexplained or at least underdeveloped, sidebars. There’s a whole weird vignette involving Eli getting a serious spider bite, a sequence which involves a dream involving the Sisters’ father in what almost looks like a moment from a horror film, but upon waking from his bite induced delirium, Eli is then informed that there was an attacker in camp who seriously injured the Sisters’ horses. What? Later, a scene in the town of Mayfield involves a rather odd looking female impresario by that very name (Rebecca Root), whose backstory might have been a bit better explicated. A coda at the end of the film featuring a sweet cameo by the wonderful Carol Kane as the Sisters’ mother also just kind of comes out of nowhere and frankly doesn’t seem to know where it’s going in any case.

Things are at least a little more straightforward with regard to Morris and Warm, who end up forging a friendship after Morris finagles his way into Warm’s good graces. It turns out Warm has a formula which will almost magically “reveal” gold in bodies of water when it’s added to the water, and that is in fact what The Commodore is after. Suffice it to say that a number of things go horribly awry yet again, leading to a series of deaths and dismemberments.

I'm not entirely convinced The Sisters Brothers really works as a so-called "revisionist western", but it's decidedly odd and rather winning, especially in the performance category. Reilly really owns the film (he co-produced and was evidently one of the leading forces behind getting the film made), but he's ably supported by Phoenix, Gyllenhaal and Ahmed. The film has an unabashedly whimsical side which may not mesh all that well with some of its more grotesque imagery and/or ideas, but it provides the kind of bizarrely interesting story that could very well have helped to fill a volume of a Time-Life set on gonzo characters from the very wild west.

The Sisters Brothers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Sisters Brothers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists a couple of Arri models as having digitally captured the imagery, and I'm once again assuming things were finished at a 2K DI. This is a really interesting looking feature from director Audiard and cinematographer Benoît Debie. As stated above in the main body of the review, things are sometimes framed a bit unexpectedly with, for example, at least a couple of shootouts filmed from a considerable distance. There are also a number of "arty" shots with lens flare (either real or "manufactured") and the like intruding into the frame, and as such detail levels can vary at times. There's some grading going on as well, often to yellows and browns, but on the whole the palette pops extremely well, especially in some of the gorgeous outdoor locations. The exterior shots also often feature exceptional depth of field and rather surprising amount of fine detail on elements like foliage. Close-ups deliver some stomach churning views of injuries some of the characters sustain. There are a number of nighttime or dimly lit scenes where shadow detail is fairly minimal.

The Sisters Brothers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Sisters Brothers features a nicely forceful sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. I'd bet that the sound design team had a blast (figuratively and literally) adding a bit of "oomph" to the recurrent gunshots that populate the film, because they really erupt with considerable energy almost all of the time. There's good directionality in the shootout scenes, and other crowd scenes, like the brothers' stop at the Mayfield inn and brothel, also provide excellent surround activity. Alexandre Desplat's fun score resides in the side and rear channels very winningly, and dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly throughout the presentation.

The Sisters Brothers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Striking Gold: Making a Modern Day Western (1080p; 15:11) is a decent EPK with some good interviews.


• Q & A Panel (1080p; 13:40) features director Jacques Audiard, screenwriter Thomas Bidegain, and Jake Gyllenhaal.


• Promotional Featurettes offer two more short EPKs, both with very brief interviews and snippets from the film:

  Brothers Forever (1080p; 1:11)

  Wanted Dead or Alive (1080p; 00:45)

• Gallery (1080p; 1:03) features either a Manual Advance or an Auto Advance option. The timing is for the Auto Advance option.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:32)

The Sisters Brothers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Sisters Brothers takes a different tack than many recent "revisionist westerns". It's gritty as many of those entries are, but it also has a slightly comic subtext at times that may clash with content for some viewers. Reilly is wonderful as the often hapless Eli, attempting to keep his wayfaring brother on track, and the film is often incredibly scenic. Technical merits are first rate, and The Sisters Brothers comes Recommended.