Not the Perfect Con

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

The Brothers Bloom - Movie PosterTHE BROTHERS BLOOM is one of those movies that feel better to talk about than to actually see.

By that, I mean that it has very good ingredients, but when they are all mixed together, you can end up feeling cheated, because you didn’t enjoy it as much as you thought you would.

Written and directed by Rian Johnson, whose first film was the much- acclaimed 2006 BRICK, this film is about two brothers who have been con artists all their lives.

The film begins when they are kids after they have been through 38 foster homes and Stephen devises a con designed to allow his younger brother Bloom to get the girl in school that he pines for.

The plan doesn’t end the way they had hoped it would, but that doesn’t stop them, as we see 25 years later in Berlin and the conclusion of their most recent con.

Stephen, now played by Mark Ruffalo, and Bloom, now played by Adrian Brody, are successful, but Bloom wants out of the game and tells his brother, “I want an unwritten life.”

Bloom says he is going to take off where Stephen and their colleague, an Oriental woman named Bang Bang, can never find him.

Well, naturally, they can, and three months later Stephen and Bang Bang show up in Montenegro, where Bloom is living. Stephen outlines what he says will be their last con together, and the mark is Penelope Stamp, played by Rachel Weisz, even though their rule has always been “No women.”

Penelope lives alone in the largest private estate on the East Coast of America and is incredibly rich, and at this point you will probably guess the ending, but you would be only half right.

Stephen has designed an elaborate step to get Bloom to meet Penelope, and to say that it doesn’t go exactly as planned would be the understatement of all understatements.

However, the first part of the con works, and Penelope accompanies them on a steamer to Greece, and at this point you might conclude that the only ones being conned are the audience.

We are told that the perfect con is the one in which everyone involved gets just the thing they wanted.

THE BROTHERS BLOOM is not the perfect con, because the audience doesn’t get the enjoyment they wanted.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”