Review of Brothers of the Head (2006) by Chads. — 28 Apr 2007

For the savvy rock-and-roll fan in the know, the point of "Brothers of the Head" was to create an alternate music history in which the provincial punk-rockers Bang Bang preceded both, The Sex Pistols, and quite possibly, The Ramones.

But since their music is so horrible, the uninititated might mistake "Brothers of the Head" as a deadpan comic take on "This is Spinal Tap", because more likely than not, they'd also be unfamiliar with the tradition of naive art(Wesley Willis, Daniel Johnston, etc.

). Although the Rob Reiner mock-doc is by far the superior film, this ambitious curio from the UK truly feels unscripted as a real documentary should. It's actors never seem aware that the cameras are rolling.

Of course, the trade-off isn't exactly a crowd-pleaser; you're sacrificing entertainment for authenticity. At times, "Brothers of the Head" is difficult to watch, due in part to the indistingushable personalities of Tom(Harry Treadway) and Barry(Luke Treadway).

Neither twin are particularly interesting, and worse, their mumbling dialogue(which is prosaic without a lick of wit or humor) overlaps each others' words. It takes a woman reporter, Laura Ashworth(Diana Kent), to make either musician remotely interesting, when the ice queen chooses Barry.

As a result of this newly created love triangle, the thunderstruck musician changes the title of his to ode to her existence from "My Friend" to "My Friend, You C***". At first you're shocked(and so is she), but you quickly come to realize his sudden resistance to love(as does Laura), since a normal life means having to ignore the incidental menage a trois each time they make love.

"Brothers of the Head" muck things up a bit towards the end by overstacking its deck as to who was the catalyst for the demise of Bang Bang.