Review of Break Point (2014) by Rama G — 31 Aug 2015

Hilarious! A great little movie about brothers.

This is fantastic little movie about family and brotherhood and even if you don't know much about tennis, you'll find a thing or two that you can appreciate about BREAK POINT. Funny and heartwarming, a pleasant surprise. Great ensemble cast: Jeremy, David, Amy, Vincent, J.K. and Joshua are a delight to watch.

One of the things appealing about BREAK POINT is that there is strength in its simplicity. Whereas other movies would spend a lot of time and try too hard to be all profound when it doesn't need to be, BREAK POINT accomplishes depth and profundity in just 90 minutes and it doesn't shove them down our throats. Yes, it's a comedy, but one that's so engaging with themes that are so common, this is a comedy that leaves you feeling hopeful in the end whatever the result of the tennis match may be. There's a bit of 'Rocky' in there, there's a bit of sibling friction and a bit of mentorship as well, you can't help but like BREAK POINT, it's simply irresistible and effective.

Jeremy Sisto plays the reckless man-child Jimmy who's at his age when other tennis players just don't see him as having any future in the sport, his last partner drops him just as he's planning to enter a grand slam tournament, and so in desperation, he reaches out to his childhood partner, his estranged brother Darren whom he dropped years ago. Darren, a more reserved and conservative tennis player still feels the hurt after all these years but after being convinced by an 11-year old named Barry who looks up to him, Darren decided to take his brother up on his offer and so goes their journey to train together and re-learn and re-discover their game once again while finding out what it means to be brothers.

This Jimmy and Darren dynamic reminds me of the Odd Couple, as if Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar were on the Tennis court. The jokes are rated R but they're on target and edgy, Jeremy Sisto in particular gets to say the best lines in this film, and young actor Joshua Rush excellently holds his own in the midst of these two adult brothers trying to prove themselves once more. And in a way, it's also a dudes type of movie and I don't mean that in a sexist or one-sided manner, what I mean is that the way the brothers resolve their conflict is like any regular dudes would, meaning whatever resentment we may have, we can easily shrug it off, sometimes, not in all cases, but we don't talk about it for hours, we'd pull a 'forget about it' card and that's why I think BREAK POINT speaks more truth than most of the movies about brothers I've seen out there.

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