Brother's Keeper

Rating: Null/10 (7 April 2004)

NASCAR is probably the most idiotic sport in America that keeps attracting audiences. The only element that makes it unique, of course, is the promise of crashing. Hours of boredom for the promise of action, much like common view of Bruckheimer's projects. It's also the only thing that keeps fans coming back. Since this project starts with an insipid frame (NASCAR racing), it must either have visual flair--which dies quickly--or subtexts in the metagame.
I will skip commenting on plot and visual flair because this is, after all, a Bruckheimer production. Jerry has his own "slave crews" ranging from sound teams to photographers and editors. He even has directors and composers in his pocket--here it's Tony Scott and Cruise with Zimmer in support.
No, I saw this to compare what Tony does with Cruise compared with what Tony's brother, Ridley, did in 'Legend'. In 'Legend', Cruise is a cog in the grand machine of things (like the character structuring in 'ALIEN'). Here, Cruise is the machine running things--how ironic.
So Tony, Tom and Jerry try and still fail again. Tony would try sports again with 'Boyscout' while Bruckheimer returned to Cops and Military genre with someone else--Michael Bay. Ironically, Ridley's foray with Jerry differed because Scott passed off his vision for 'Blackhawk' as "macho-gung-ho 'Top Gun' stuff" and Jerry fell for it.
Jerry has made only three interesting efforts (the first 'Cop', 'Blackhawk', and 'Pirates') so far. Let's hope he abandons film for TV and gets off of our screens.
Ron Howard would try the Tom/Nicole combo. He failed.
Final Analysis = = Cinematic Dud