The film is about a Fernandez family whose roots come from a street fighter Dad. Later the two brothers from the family separate, when the father goes to jail for committing a murder. They both come face to face with each other after years in a fighting ring. The main plot of the film is the father wishing to reunite his sons. It is an extremely slow and a baseless film. You should go and watch this film only to see Akshay Kumar’s zoomed shots of his ripped torso and well attempted fighting scenes.

The makers have done a smart thing by retaining almost all the key scenes from Warrior in Brothers. These are the points where the audience feels involved in the story. It’s amazing to see how the same issues affect lives in two different spheres. However, the problem starts the moment it deviates from the original storyline. Nick Nolte was a man with a restrained demeanour, but Gary has a special affinity for theatrics. Apart from the scene where he spoils Monty’s birthday, he mostly reminds the viewer of yesteryear’s villain Nilu Phule. He either barges into a room with a loud sound or cries inconsolably, but fails to recreate the same effect that Nolte did without hamming. You remember how powerful the Warrior scene was where Nolte gets drunk and Hardy consoles him. Brothers recreates it but with absolutely zero impact. However, not all new additions to the film are bad. Some of them are well thought out. For example, the camaraderie between the two brothers and how it developed over the years is a nice blend of sweet and sour, and looks authentic while Warrior doesn’t delve deep into this aspect. Also, the build up to the climax is praise-worthy, especially the sequence in which a fighter kicks Shroff or the series of juxtapositions used towards the end. Unfortunately, these moments are very few in number. Karan Malhotra’s Brothers is not Warrior. It’s an ode to formula-driven content. Having said that, Brothers still offers you some fantastic fight sequences and a matured Akshay Kumar. You can also consider it a new film rather than a Warrior remake and be happy about it.

Brothers aspires to be a high-voltage sports film, but is unable to land its punches on target. This film is a perfect demonstration of all that is wrong with contemporary Bollywood potboilers. It is marred by poor scripting and unbridled overacting. In a film like Brothers, the quality of the acting doesn’t matter. What matters is the impact of the action scenes, which have the potential to make and mar of the production. For all the hoopla, Brothers, in going for the jugular, punches well below its weight. It makes so much noise that any sensible point about brotherly bonding and filial fidelity that it might be trying to make is completely drowned out by the decibels. Take your earplugs along.

Brothers is so bad it should be disqualified. It’s loud, over-the-top and an exhausting watch. The entire first half, in fact, is unwatchable. Right upto the point of intermission, relentless melodrama is thrust our way with operatic zeal, complete with an excruciating, crescendo-driven background score and characters trying to out-wail it. It’s all tears and flashbacks and, funnily enough, it’s entirely unnecessary. The quickest fix for this truly bad film? Watch only the second half. Actually, I must here apologise. I may here have implied that the post-intermission portion is any good. It isn’t, though the good news is that after such a horrendous first-half, it does at least feature some spiffy camerawork and well-choreographed action sequences. Weighing 158 unbearable minutes, Brothers is nearly 600-times as long as the Rousey win -- and not one-millionth as thrilling.

‘Brothers’ uses a form of kinetic martial arts to foreground its story of two warring siblings, but it stays, at heart, a Karan Johar film : the crunching bones and spraying blood is as heavily underscored by we-are-family soppiness as it is with deafening background music. Result: a film that actually has a plot (officially adapted from Hollywood film ‘Warriors’, with shades of ‘Fight Club’ and ‘Rocky’ thrown in) riding on competent acts, but which squanders its advantages because of the treatment. The trouble lies in the way it is done. You can show sentiment without dousing it in sentimentality. ‘Brothers’ gets dragged down by its over-wrought mawkishness. ‘Mukkas’ and mush can go together, but not when the latter threatens to drown the former. When the tough get going, audiences are happy to toughen it out too. Here we see the brothers go at each other, limbs snapping at each blow, and all we can hear is ‘bhaiyyaaa’.

Brothers features Akshay Kumar in one of his best roles. The other performances are weaker. Siddharth Malhotra remains an enigma wrapped in a mystery, with few dialogues and limited expressions. The lack of fire in Siddharth's Monty just doesn't build up a sense of furious clash - instead, it makes the brothers' face-off curiously flat. The cameos work better. In a brittle little role, Shefali conveys trembling, conflicted emotions while Ashutosh Rana as a cheeky manager and Kiran Kumar, as a martial arts promoter covered in mystery and cigar smoke, pad this drama well. However, its angst could have hit a much harder punch - for when blood sours, it explodes. But Brothers, despite mouthing, 'Har sport mein thora drama toh hota hai', only skims that dramatic surface. It could've dived in deeper.

Watching Karan Malhotra’s ‘Brothers’ is like déjà vu. It’s like re-watching the worst of the ‘70s – this film is as cliché-ridden as it can be. It has it all - a drunken father jailed for killing his wife, sparring stepbrothers, token Muslim characters (who readily mouth Insha Allah) and dialogues that make the ears bleed. Not only is this a shoddy remake (of Gavin O’Connor’s ‘Warriors’), it also brandishes the most pedestrian dialogues that you would have heard in any recent Hindi film. Karan Johar has definitely gone wrong somewhere while mentoring Karan Malhotra. No matter how mushy and over-the-top KJo’s storylines are, these slick productions give you something to smile about. ‘Brothers’, however, is downright depressing. Such was the ordeal of sitting through the film, I was tempted to walk out at the interval. But I didn’t. And so I have this tale to tell: You can give ‘Brothers’ a complete miss, and you wouldn’t have missed anything at all.