You can’t help but like this silly moose
The Brooklyn Brothers Beat The Best (15) Verdict: Awful but strangely en-deer-ing ★★✩✩✩
hERE’S yet another low-key American indie comedy about a slacker trying to re-organise his apparently doomed existence. Written, directed and quite probably financed by its star Ryan O’Nan, it relies almost entirely on his pleasant smile and resilience in the face of humiliation. So at least he’ll be ready for the reviews. The film begins with Alex, a beardy loser (O’Nan) being fired by the only other member of his band. They are a folk duo who were never suited. Our hero writes defiantly doomladen songs about isolation. his colleague pens hideous songs about werewolves and vampires. Alex loses his boring day-job at an estate agent’s after an altercation with a colleague at the water-cooler. This is followed by humiliation at a daycare centre for mentally disabled children, where one of them attacks him while he is singing to them in a pink moose-suit. his life changes, seemingly for the worse, when he is approached by Jim (Michael Weston), an optimistic soul who plays toy instruments badly and often while driving. Miraculously, Jim sets up a tour across America for the Brooklyn Brothers, which is supposed to end in a battle of the bands in LA. There follows an aimless road movie, in which the lads pick up a gorgeous manager (Arielle Kebbel) and audiences across the U.S. implausibly warm to the duo’s mawkish, childish songs. There’s no happy ending — the budget couldn’t have run to it — so the title is a gross misrepresentation of the movie, but you can’t help but like the central character. Ultimately, the movie turns into a homily about the importance of sharing your dreams with likeminded people. I’d be a lot more receptive to that message if it didn’t lead to a lot of well-meaning but inept films being inflicted on defenceless audiences.