Review of Brothers of the Head (2006) by Paul M — 12 Dec 2007

"What's that about?" said a friend when I told him I'd recently seen Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's first foray into fictional film-making (following their Terry Gilliam documentaries The Hamster Factor and Lost in La Mancha) . "It's a mockumentary about conjoined twins who form a band in the 1970s." I replied. "Ah, like Spinal Tap meets Stuck On You?". Well, not quite. Brothers of the Head is a darker movie than my friend's proposed high concept synopsis suggests (that is darker literally as well as figuratively - the 1970s world inhabited by the titular brothers, Tom and Barry Howe, being photographed in muddy, murky tones).

Real-life (non-Siamese) twins Harry and Luke Treadaway do well in the central roles, particularly as the script gives them little to work with beyond superficial one-angry-twin-one-sensitive-twin stereotypes, and Sean Harris also impresses in a supporting role as the brothers' cruel minder but the film is content to chart the progress of the twins' punk band The Bang Bang without ever exploring any of the characters in real depth. Some additional interest is provided by a film-within-a-film about the Howe brothers, supposedly directed by Ken Russell, which allows for blink-and-you'll-miss-'em cameos from Jonathan Pryce, John Simm and Jane Horracks but this does little to distract from the flaws in a movie that fails to give it's intriguing central premise the treatment it warrants.