The sophomore effort from Rian Johnson, the brains behind the rather splendid high-school noir Brick, is the sort of film that mentions Hermann Melville’s The Confidence Man then admonishes itself for the allusion. A tricksy picture and no mistake, The Brothers Bloom contains enough plot twists and sleights of hand to fuel an entire season of Lost, should anyone require such a superfluous thing. The titular siblings, played with charisma and aplomb by Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo, are grifters of the highest calibre. Since childhood, Stephen (Ruffalo) and Bloom (Brody) have proved themselves capable of staging the most elaborate rouses. Stephen is the brains of the outfit, a master of international intrigue who composes his schemes like intricate screenplays, replete with dramatic gunfights, romantic subplots and bit players. His hangdog frère, meanwhile, frets and moralises, anxious to escape the glamorous trickery of it all. Matters come to a head when Bloom is dispatched to seduce an adorable eccentric heiress played by the consistently delightful Rachel Weisz. Like everything else in Mr. Johnson’s film, the lady seems to have waltzed out of a Fitzgerald novel, hat and all.
The film’s very literary games are plenty entertaining but just when it looks as though we’re heading into the same sunny funny territory as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the film gets tied up in a gorgon’s knot of unnecessary melancholy. As a witty, self-reflexive doodle, however, it’ll do just fine.FY