Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

The Brothers McMullen (1995)

Director: Edward Burns

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Burns' engaging first feature is a witty romantic comedy about God, sex and commitment in Long Island, New York. The brothers are: Jack (Mulcahy), happily married and about to fall into a reckless affair; Barry (Burns himself), a bachelor who may just have got the woman of his dreams; and Patrick (McGlone), a devoutly Catholic graduate whose Jewish girlfriend has their whole future mapped out. Circumstances bring the three together again under one roof, where they pool their guilt, bafflement and indecision. Burns wrote and directed the film on a shoestring, but if his stamping ground is determinedly working-class Irish-American, the tone is closer to the gentle Uptown ironies of Woody Allen than to Hal Hartley or Jim Jarmusch. Macho pride is the font of most of the comedy, and it's only in the rather pat conclusion that the clan work out an uneasy rapprochement with their female partners. Burns is hardly the most innovative talent to have emerged this year, but he's found plenty of comic mileage in his own backyard.

Author: TCh 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Edward Burns

Producer: Edward Burns

Cast: Jack Mulcahy, Edward Burns, Mike McGlone, Connie Britton, Maxine Bahns, Elizabeth P McKay full cast

Duration: 108 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.