The Brothers Grimm

Does it deserve 10 stars? No, but I look at this as a thumbs up or thumbs down thing, and it's getting thumbs up, sooo...disclaimer there.

I really liked this and I accept that I am in the minority. It has the Terry Gilliam comedic feel to it and it has the Terry Gilliam acid trip feel to it... and even at it's worst that is still absolutely entertaining and a pure joy to watch.

Someone mentioned wide angle work before and, yes, it has a lot of that wide angle close-up work that can only really be appreciated by people that thought they could out Thompson Hunter Thompson in their youth... wink wink nudge nudge, if you know what I mean.

The only real draw back is that Damon doesn't seem to fit in his role, and he doesn't really seem to fit in a Gilliam film...but surprisingly Ledger seems perfectly at home in that kind of world and you get the sense that he enjoyed acting the part as much as you are enjoying watching him act the part.

And then here and there you get a joke, a sight gag, a little hint that reminds you that, yeah, Gilliam was in Python wasn't he? That's something that you'd see in the Flying Circus shoved in there. Almost to the point where you can't but stop and wonder if he was channeling Idle or Chapman for some of the dialogue and physical humor.

It's a Gilliam film, made for adults, with Warner Brothers Cartoon violence. It's trippy and fun and it might not be your cup of tea, but I loved it.

Well it is a Terry Gilliam film so was always going to be a bit eccentric - but the idea that the legendary Brothers Grimm were actually grifters was actually quite an fun one. Assemble a couple of A-listers and we should have been flying. Except, well - we are not. Instead of having some amiable horseplay as they fleece the gullible and the unwitting, we find "Jake" (Heath Legder) and "Will" (Matt Damon) in a village where the children have all gone missing. The local grandee "Gen. Delatombe" (Jonathan Pryce) is on to their scamming and decides it's time to get them to prove their worth. Where are the sprogs? Well to save their necks, the not so dynamic duo have to deal with a seriously malevolent and fantastic foe in the "Mirror Queen" (the sparingly used Monica Bellucci) who wants to take over the world kind of thing. What now ensues are a series of typical Gilliam-esque escapades using a mediaeval backdrop to facilitate the borderline slapstick antics of the siblings trying to save their bacon. At times it is quite amusing offering some enjoyable parodies of established fairy tales, and the script does deliver a few entertaining quips as we go along but it seems unsure just who it's for. There's some darkness and good, old-fashioned, evil - but not enough of that. It's as if it was trying to be scary but hadn't quite the courage (to settle for a higher age rating, maybe?). As it is, it falls between two stools leaving us with an undercooked and overlong, slightly repetitious, series of frying pan to fire scenarios that even the engaging Ledger can't spin out for two hours. Damon doesn't really add much and Pryce is just in uniformed ham mode through his brief appearances. If you know the works of the brothers, it will make much more sense and some of it's observations about superstitions and the society in which the peasantry and gentry lived are quite witty, but they are all to often lost in a sea of mediocrity.

**Score: 7/10 A Flawed But Fascinating Gilliam Curiosity That Deserves a Second Look**

It's not Gilliam's best work, but it does get a bum wrap \[that is not entirely deserved\]. *The Brothers Grimm* arrives with all the ingredients of a Terry Gilliam masterpiece a fantastical premise, a rich historical backdrop, a cast of eccentric characters, and a director known for his singular visual imagination. What emerges is a messy, uneven, but genuinely entertaining film that deserves more credit than it's been given.

**The Premise: Fairy Tales Meet Historical Fantasy**

The film reimagines Wilhelm (Matt Damon) and Jacob Grimm (Heath Ledger) as con artists in early 19th-century French-occupied Germany. The brothers travel from town to town, fabricating supernatural encounters and "exorcising" imaginary curses for profit. When the French authorities uncover their scam, they are forced into a real investigation: a series of mysterious disappearances in a village that may involve genuine magic. What follows is a dark, twisted fairy tale that weaves together elements from the Brothers Grimm's famous stories Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel into a cohesive, if convoluted, narrative.

**What Works: Gilliam's Visual Genius**

The film's greatest strengths are its visuals and its atmosphere. Gilliam's imagination is on full display, from the eerie, enchanted forest to the crumbling, gothic village to the genuinely unsettling sequences involving a cursed mirror and a gingerbread house that is not what it seems. The production design is first-rate, the cinematography is lush and atmospheric, and the practical effects when they work are delightfully tactile. This is a world you want to get lost in, even when the story falters.

**Heath Ledger: A Star on the Rise**

One of the film's great pleasures is watching Heath Ledger in one of his earlier roles. It's good to look back on his earlier work, as you can see that he was destined for greatness. As Jacob, the more sensitive and scholarly of the two brothers, Ledger brings a warmth, humour, and genuine emotional depth that elevates the material. He finds moments of real pathos amidst the chaos, and his chemistry with Matt Damon is genuinely charming. You can see the actor he would become the intensity, the commitment, the ability to disappear into a role.

**Matt Damon: Comedy and Charisma**

Matt Damon, as the cynical, pragmatic Wilhelm, is a solid comedic foil. He plays the straight man to Ledger's dreamer, and their bickering, sibling dynamic provides some of the film's best moments. Damon is clearly having fun, and his performance is loose, charming, and occasionally very funny.

**What Doesn't Work: A Messy Narrative**

Where the film stumbles is in its storytelling. The plot is overstuffed and often confusing, juggling too many characters, subplots, and mythological references without ever fully committing to any of them. The tone is wildly inconsistent, veering from slapstick comedy to genuine horror to sentimental drama without warning. The villains including Jonathan Pryce's French general and Monica Bellucci's cursed queen are underdeveloped and fail to provide a compelling threat.

The film also suffers from a lack of focus. It doesn't quite work as a fairy tale, nor as a historical drama, nor as a comedy. It's caught between genres, and the result is a film that feels less than the sum of its parts.

**Why It Deserves a Second Look**

Despite its flaws, *The Brothers Grimm* is never boring. It's a film made with genuine passion and imagination, and it contains moments of real magic. It's a Gilliam film through and through messy, ambitious, visually stunning, and utterly unique. It's not *Brazil*, not *The Fisher King*, not *12 Monkeys*. But it's also not the disaster it was made out to be. It's a flawed gem, a curious oddity in a great director's filmography, and it deserves more credit than it's received.

**The Verdict**

*The Brothers Grimm* is a 7/10. It's not Gilliam's best work, but it's far from his worst. It's a fun, visually inventive, and occasionally frustrating film that rewards the viewer with Heath Ledger's early brilliance and a handful of genuinely unforgettable images. If you've dismissed it in the past, it might be worth a revisit.

**Watch if:** You're a Terry Gilliam completist, a Heath Ledger fan, or you enjoy dark fairy tales and don't mind a little narrative chaos.

**Skip if:** You prefer tight plotting, consistent tone, or Gilliam at his absolute best. This is mid-tier Gilliam but mid-tier Gilliam is still more interesting than most directors' best.