Title: My Brother the Devil
Director: Sally El Hosaini
Starring: James Floyd, Fady Elsayed, Said Taghmaoui, Elarica Gallacher, Leemore Marrett, Jr.
Playing like a M.I.A. song come to life, Sally El Hosaini’s British import “My Brother the Devil” transcends the gangland melodrama of its roots courtesy of a convincingly sketched setting, and rich veins of class identity, faith, political belief and sexual identity, all of which jostle and compete with the main narrative plotlines for attention.
In the ethnically mixed and socioeconomically depressed Hackney neighborhood of London, teenager Mo (Fady Elsayed) idolizes his charismatic older brother Rashid (James Floyd), a low-level drug peddler. The death of a friend, however, triggers a rising reticence in Rashid about the direction (or lack thereof) of his life. After forging a bond with photographer Sayyid (Said Taghmaoui), Rashid begins to envision making enough money to stake a “legit” life — possibly for his girlfriend Vanessa (Elarica Gallacher), but definitely for his brother and struggling, Egyptian-born parents. Old turf wars and unsettled accounts with a rival gang leader, Demon (Leemore Marrett, Jr.), however, seemingly foreclose an easy exit, while at the same time Mo starts doing drug runs behind his brother’s back.
There’s a certain feeling of laid-track narrative that hangs over “My Brother the Devil,” at least when it’s peddling the siren song of gang life to Mo. This story — enthralled, impressionable youngster caught up in the psychological undertow of a n’er-do-well older sibling — is very familiar, and that fact, combined with El Hosaini’s deliberate pacing, has one feeling every one of the movie’s first 20 or 30 minutes double-time, no matter the clarity of its observance.
But a funny thing happens on the way toward tedium, as “My Brother the Devil” starts vacuuming up new story strands and buoying details like a Hoover. El Hosaini workshopped the movie at three different Sundance Institute labs (Middle Eastern, Screenwriting and Directing), and the benefits of those continual, disparate fine tooth combings benefit the material, particularly in its attention to detail. True, it unfolds under a barrage of copious and sometimes empty-headed slang — where “Inn’t?” is a fully formed question and the salutatory “bruv” the equivalent of usage of “fuhgettaboutit” in “Donnie Brasco” — but “My Brother the Devil” feels rooted and real, and less concerned with chest-thumping braggadocio than other gang flicks. The hoods in El Hosaini’s world have lives and feelings outside the parameters of any of their illegal actions; they at one point argue about bacon, and a charge of terrorism is brought up as a feint — a cover for something a distraught Mo deems much worse.
Director of photography David Raedeker does a wonderful job of capturing this urban landscape with a simple, unshowy poetry, and the lead performances here are rich and full bodied. “My Brother the Devil” covers some familiar ground, it’s true, but El Hosaini locates the commingled struggle and quiet beauty of the quotidian, where opportunity and hope are frequently too little nourished.
Technical: B
Acting: B-
Story: B
Overall: B
Written by: Brent Simon
