Four Brothers
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: August 12, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
13
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Four Brothers works as an urban thriller, if not precisely as a model of logic. Read full review
75
USA TodayMike Clark
Preposterous yet solidly entertaining. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
If you can overcome the graphic nature of its casual violence, it is a lot of fun. The banter among the brothers is well-written and has a genuine fraternal feel to it. And the chases and shootouts have a fresh malevolence to them. Read full review
70
VarietyJoe Leydon
With equal measures of rock-the-house vigor and in-your-face attitude, Four Brothers proves usually potent and consistently enjoyable as an old school approach to what might best be described as the urban-Western genre of slam-bang, balls-out action-revenger. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
It's a finely tuned Motor City engine: The action, including a nighttime car chase through a blinding snowstorm, is fast, brutal and efficient; the Motown soundtrack never cuts out; and as a gangster called Sweet, the British-Nigerian actor Chiwetel Ejiofor gives an electrifying performance. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Wahlberg, whose Bobby is the kind of guy who enters a room gun first, swinging a can of a gasoline, is the glue that holds everything together; he's perfectly cast and has never given a more persuasive performance. Read full review
70
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Gripping: Even when it wobbles off-track, it has some juice to it. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Proficiently made trash. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Easily the best 1975 B-movie made in 2005, Four Brothers is a raucously entertaining vigilante film. Read full review
63
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
True, John Ford and John Wayne did this stuff a lot better back in the day, but they're not around anymore. John Singleton is, and it's nice to see someone caring enough to keep the tradition alive. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
A faux-low-budget revenge thriller, pure and simple. There's nothing special about it, and that's what's refreshing. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter Travers
What holds us are the actors, including Terrence Howard as a cop who grew up with the brothers. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
A typically energetic urban action melodrama, offering car chases, beatings, murders, a dog mauling, attempted arson, frequent double-crosses and pitched street battles worthy of Fallouja. Read full review
60
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
It’s more than adequate as an old school action movie slightly updated for modern audiences. Read full review
60
EmpireNick De Semlyen
Heavy-handed in places and bad news for the Detroit Tourist Commission, this is still a slick, fun ensemble piece and a step back in the right direction for Singleton. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The casting is hit-and-miss. OutKast's Benjamin and "Troy's" Hedlund are weak, but Gibson is very appealing and the movie powers along on a strong lead performance by Wahlberg, who has never seemed more confident, commanding or scruffily charismatic. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
If you take any of this seriously, you are not going to enjoy the movie very much. But as an absurd riff on baadasssss gangsta movies, Four Brothers has an undeniable visceral kick. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverBill Gallo
The movie's not great, but Mom might like it. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
For all its well-drawn lines between good and evil, Four Brothers is ultimately passive entertainment. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Four Brothers immediately joins the Good Idea, Bad Execution club. Hardly anyone seems to care about its believability - not director John Singleton, writers David Elliott and Paul Lovett or some lackadaisical actors. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
This is the kind of scrappy Seventies-throwback B-movie that fits the bill when you desperately need to see regular-seeming, occasionally inept people rise up against our corrupt criminal oppressors and cudgel them with pool cues and bits of blasted-off brick. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Hartlaub
More action directors should include scenes such as the Mercers' extended Thanksgiving dinner, which fleshes out the bond between the brothers without using too many words. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
What results is unremarkably schizophrenic--half gritty sojourn into the inner-city furnace, half Hollywood brain death. Read full review
40
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Atmospheric, propulsive and ultimately preposterous melodrama. Read full review
40
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Loud, stupid, unrealistic, overdone, without a thought in its ugly little head and kind of enjoyable. Read full review
38
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Singleton's sloppiest, laziest movie to date, springing to life in fits and starts, risibly mawkish and occasionally gripping, and often feeling like it was made up on the set. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jason Anderson
The director's approach is far too ham-fisted and erratic to bring Four Brothers up to the level of enjoyable trash -- it's too crummy to earn that distinction. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Because the script, riddled with verbal ugliness by David Elliot and Paul Lovett, sends the movie to a series of arbitrary nowheres, the final showdown for the Mercer boys and their enemies is just as meaningless and sense-deadening. Read full review
20
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Four Brothers regresses into gallows comedy, rampant misogyny, and one preposterous Hollywood action setpiece after another. Read full review
20
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
A career low for Mark Wahlberg and director John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood), this ridiculous mean-streets adventure starts out like a Hell's Kitchen melodrama from the 30s and eventually spins off into a series of gunfights, beat downs, and trite Motown numbers. Read full review
12
New York PostKyle Smith
Four Brothers? Ringling Brothers is more like it, because John Singleton's latest stinks like something the elephants left behind. It's not clear what the film is trying to do, but it seems safe to guess that it's doing it wrong. Read full review
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