With “Palm Springs,” first-time director Max Barbakow achieved the kind of whirlwind debut most filmmakers only dream of. The time-loop rom-com, which starred Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti as wedding guests forced to relive the same day over and over again, was the hit of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Neon and Hulu acquired it in a record-breaking sale.
The looming pandemic was serendipitous timing for a streaming debut, and “Palm Springs” ended up setting Hulu records when it came out that summer. Barbakow had a bona fide cultural phenomenon on his hands and seemingly became an established Hollywood director overnight. How do you follow a once-in-a-decade success like “Palm Springs”? Barbakow decided to pivot to a good old-fashioned American heist comedy.
His sophomore feature “ Brothers ” (now streaming on Prime Video) stars Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage as siblings who went in very different directions after their troubled youths. Dinklage’s Jady Munger spent years in prison for a petty crime they committed together, while Brolin’s Moke narrowly escaped and built a new life for himself on the straight and narrow. But when converging circumstances cause both men to need money in a hurry, they’re forced to paper over years of hard feelings quickly and hit the road to pull a final job that prompts them to reexamine the root causes behind their failure to launch.
Neither Dinklage nor Brolin plays the kind of role you’d expect. Both men became hou.