Best & Worst of Josh Brolin

Article by Gabe Zia
So, it's that tiem of the week again, where I take one of the stars of an upcoming release, and look at their best and worst films. Slow week this time, with only Sin City: A Dame to Kill For being of any real interest to me. The film stars Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jessica Alba, Eva Green, and this weeks guy, Josh Brolin.

Brolin has had a great career so-far, with two great dramatic roles, and a few action films and dramas as well. Now, I was originally going to go with the light hearted, family friendly, happy movie The Goonies. However, I've decided to instead go with the incredibly dark, really depressing, and violent movie No Country for Old Men.

Coen Brothers films are most of the time violent and dark, but they have a style of comedy that makes them fun movies to watch. That is not the case with No Country for Old Men, with the Coens have seemingly taken out their funny comedic style and just made a completely dark and disturbing movie. Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem are both great in the film, and the way this film is executed is masterful, which is why I'd say it's Josh Brolins best film. However, that does not mean I'd recommend everyone go see this movie, because it's absolutely not for everyone.

When concerning adaptations, No Country for Old Men seems to be the only one with Josh Brolin that is good. A lot of people would use that to segway into the awful Jonah Hex, but I can't seeing as I only watched 30 minutes into that movie before I stopped watching it for my own sake. No, I'm going with a more recent adaptation, and that is Oldboy.

When remaking a film only 10 years after the originals release, It's a given that the film would be different. But, you have to retain some of the values of the original, right? Instead of a deep and profound drama, this film goes more for a gritutiously violent action film with no depth. Which leads to my biggest problem with the film, which is "that thing that happens in Oldboy" (If you've seen Oldboy you should know exactly what i'm talking about). In the original, it works and is well delivered. But in the new one, it comes out of nowhere, is poorly delivered, and feels completely forced. And it takes away from the film in a pretty big way.