Brothers

Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal are convincing as siblings in this tense film from director Jim Sheridan. Maguire plays Capt. Sam Cahill, a Marine in Afghanistan. He disappears and is presumed dead, leaving behind his wife, Grace (Natalie Portman, doing some of her very best work). His brother Tommy (Gyllenhaal), an ex-con, gets close to Sam’s family, complicating things when it’s discovered that Sam actually survived his copter crash and is coming home. Horrible things happened to Sam while he was held captive, and Maguire gives a harrowing performance as a man who can’t live with his own actions. Gyllenhaal matches the excellence of Maguire and Portman; this is one of the year’s better ensemble acting performances. Sam Shepard (who wrote True West, which is about brothers essentially changing roles as good and bad sons) is superb as the biased father.