{"id":34290,"date":"2023-04-22T19:15:32","date_gmt":"2023-04-22T23:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/?p=34290"},"modified":"2026-04-24T16:04:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T20:04:52","slug":"review-the-brothers-2001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/review-the-brothers-2001\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Brothers’ (2001) Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Brothers<\/em> chronicle the lives of four childhood friends as they all navigate life and love. Jackson (Morris Chestnut<\/strong>) is a man with commitment issues who has a recurring nightmare involving a bride. Brian (Bill Bellamy<\/strong>) is an attorney who vows never to date another African American woman after an ex; the judge in one of his cases holds him in contempt and sends him to jail. Derrick (DL Hughley<\/strong>) is married with a new baby but struggles with the lack of sex in their marriage. And Terry (Shemar Moore<\/strong>) is a player who finally decides to settle down with a woman he’s only been dating for two months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director Gary Hardwick referred to this movie as “Refusing to Exhale.”<\/a><\/em> Indeed, many called The Brothers<\/em> the male version of 1995’s Waiting to Exhale<\/em>. I can’t say how accurate that is, given I have not yet seen Waiting to Exhale<\/em>, but… I sincerely hope Waiting to Exhale<\/em> will be a more satisfying viewing experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t dislike The Brothers<\/em>. It has a great cast and some interesting storylines. The problem is that the not-so-interesting storylines bog down the rest of the movie. I can definitely say that Jackson’s storyline was the film’s anchor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A successful physician, Jackson sees a therapist to discuss his commitment issues – he’s too scared to repeat the mistakes of his divorced parents, so he has trouble truly giving his heart to another person. Then he meets Denise (Gabrielle Union<\/a><\/strong>), a freelance photographer who may be The One. But she’s harboring a secret about a past relationship that could derail their future. This was the storyline I enjoyed most, and I could easily have watched an entire film revolving around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other three men were okay. Watching Shemar Moore’s womanizing Terry plan a wedding with a maybe-mentally unstable woman(?) was entertaining enough. But Derrick and Brian’s problems were a bit frivolous and off-putting. Brian wants to date white women because black women are too dramatic – Derrick has specific sexual needs that he wants his wife to fulfill, even though she’s coping with being a new mother. Blah, blah, whine, whine, bore, bore. I reminded myself that this was 2001, but I think those two characters could have been given something more than an old, familiar trope that’s been done so many times before and better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love a romantic dramedy that focuses on a group of friends as they find their way through life and love, and The Brothers<\/em> had its moments. It’s well-acted and plenty romantic, so while I wouldn’t watch it again, it’s still worth a viewing. I wish it had been a bit more focused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watched:<\/strong> 03\/15\/2023
Notable Song<\/strong>: Love Don’t Love Me by Eric Benet<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rating:<\/strong><\/div>
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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brothers: Four friends begin to question women and relationships when one of them announces impending nuptials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[504,1],"tags":[881,3673,3671,331,3670,1012,574,3650,3672,3674,3669],"class_list":["post-34290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews-b","category-reviews","tag-881","tag-bill-bellamy","tag-dl-hughley","tag-gabrielle-union","tag-gary-hardwick","tag-jenifer-lewis","tag-morris-chestnut","tag-2-5-stars","tag-shemar-moore","tag-tatyana-ali","tag-the-brothers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34290"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82095,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34290\/revisions\/82095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}