Four Brothers

From the man who gave us Boyz N The Hood, Poetic Justice, Shaft and 2 Fast 2 Furious (you know the one, in which Paul Walker actually thought he was black) comes director John Singleton's latest.

Four brothers tell the story of...well, four brothers. No blood relations, they are future delinquents who found themselves taken in as babies by the same woman and given a home. The movie doesn't focus on them as kids, how they dealt with adolescence, or pulled off their first drugstore robbery, but instead shows them all grown up and brought together after the murder of their foster mother (Fionnula Flanagan).

The four are Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), Angel (Tyrese Gibson - I think he's the one from the Britney Toxic music video...you know you watched it), Jeremiah (Andre "3000/Ice Cold" Benjamin) and Jack (Garrett Hedlund). Collectively, they decide to find out who did the killing and why, but soon realise that it was a little more complicated than a case of wrong place, wrong time.

The story unfolds like a violent Scooby -Doo episode, with a lot of swearing and one too many gay jokes directed at the youngest, Jack. For what it's worth, it's enjoyable enough, but from the moment they find out that this was more than a mere accident the plot begins to take on a familiar feel and you can pretty much tell what going to happen, right down to the ending, which you will either love, or hate, and unfortunately I thought it failed big style.

The performances are not bad, but villain-for-hire Chiwetel Ejiofor is probably the worst. Markie Mark is OK, but he has been better and, as for the others, well, you can forgive them since they are fairly new to the game.

Not Singleton's best, but by far not his worst.