Four Brothers

Four adoptive brothers, two white (Mark Wahlberg and Garrett Hedlund) and two black (Tyrese Gibson and Andre Benjamin), gather for their mother’s funeral—and for hunting down those responsible for her murder. David Elliot and Paul Lovett’s script is a clever, though un-credited, remake of the John Wayne Western The Sons of Katie Elder, updated to modern-day Detroit but with all the gunplay and roughhouse comic relief intact (and with Wahlberg as a surprisingly good urban version of Wayne). The four stars have the easy rapport of real brothers, thanks to the perceptive direction of John Singleton, who also stages the several gunfights at a harrowing pitch. On top of everything else, there’s a car chase through Detroit during a blizzard that’s one of the most exciting action set pieces of the last 10 years.