2 | agoodmovietowatch

There are plenty of things that The Thicket does well. For starters, the performances are great, with Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage taking his charisma to a wintry Western, and Juliette Lewis matching this intensity as his raspy, iron-willed rival. The style is certainly great too, with excellent costumes, dynamic violins, and lingering, meticulously framed shots. But there’s just something off about the way everything comes together. This tale of misfits certainly takes familiar Western tropes, and brings them together in fairly interesting ways as it gets going, but it starts off with a disappointing start, without a compelling dynamic between Jack and his sister Lula, and without a compelling dynamic between everyone on the ride. The Thicket isn’t terrible, but it’s a tad uneven at times.

Genre: Crime, Thriller, Western

Actor: Andrew Schulz, Arliss Howard, Brent Stait, Caleb Ellsworth-Clark, David Midthunder, Esme Creed-Miles, Gbenga Akinnagbe, James Hetfield, Juliette Lewis, Leslie Grace, Levon Hawke, Macon Blair, Ned Dennehy, Peter Dinklage, Roger LeBlanc, Ryan Robbins, Teach Grant

Director: Elliott Lester

Rating: R

Brothers is simply a bad film. The jokes are mediocre and the plot is thin, if not invisible. The only thing it has going for it is the cast, who, individually are great but together, in this film, are unbelievably unfunny. Except perhaps for Glenn Close, who seems to be the only one capable enough to sell her character. Everyone else is either over-the-top bad—you can count Marisa Tomei and Brendan Fraser in this category—or zero-effort bad—here you can include the leads. I can’t imagine anyone enjoying the experience of watching this movie, much less having the stomach to finish it. But maybe a few cinephiles who grew up adoring The Goonies or Tarzan will enjoy some of the references made. Otherwise, you’d do well to hide this movie from your homepage. If you can ask Prime Video to never recommend it to you ever again, even better.

Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime

Actor: Andrew Brodeur, Brendan Fraser, Devyn Dalton, Don Stallings, Glenn Close, Gralen Bryant Banks, Jennifer Landon, Jonathan Aidan Cockrell, Josh Brolin, Joshua Mikel, M. Emmet Walsh, Margo Moorer, Marisa Tomei, Matt Lewis, Nathan Hesse, Peter Dinklage, Suehyla El-Attar, Swift Rice, Taylor St. Clair, Taylour Paige, Ted Ferguson, William Tokarsky

Director: Max Barbakow

Rating: R

2

1. The Thicket, 2024

2. Brothers, 2024