YMMV / Four Brothers

• Adaptation Displacement: Most modern-day viewers probably are more familiar with this film than the Western it was loosely remaking, The Sons of Katie Elder.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: The four brothers, most specifically Bobby and Angel. Were they simply the result of traumatic childhoods and then living on the streets as thugs (including their mother's death)? Or are they really similar to the antagonists? This can be justified by the fact that they all lead a life of crime and that killing is as normal as breathing for them.
• Designated Hero: Bobby in particular is a violent, hot headed Jerkass who is a dick to his brothers and the only thing that makes him different from the bad guys is that the audience is supposed to root for him. He's also very quick to get violent on Jerry and assume he's responsible for Evelyn's death, which the latter rightfully calls him out on.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Jerry is noticeably less prominent than Bobby and Angel, but his actor received a lot of praise for the dramatic, Only Sane Man performance he brought to the movie, as well las some Beware the Nice Ones moments in the fights.
  • Sofi, for providing some decent comic relief, and being genuinely cute with Angel at times.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Victor Sweet wears a fluffy white hat and fur coat for the climax that looks more like something worn in a parody of a Destiny's Child video.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • All of the Mercer brothers have had pretty tough lives, but it can be inferred that these guys (or at least Bobby) were only kind to their mother and they can be sour and take-no prisoners in general. Still, things don't exactly get easier for them.
  • Sweet's henchmen. Yes, they are gangland thugs but they have to put up with some incredibly awful treatment from their boss. Which of course contributes to their Hazy-Feel Turn.
• Narm Charm: Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance as Victor Sweet reads like 'middle class Londoner's imitation of a man from a Detroit ghetto' and would be completely silly, but it still manages to be compelling.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Taraji P Henson doesn't get much screen time as Jeremiah's wife Camille, but her charisma in the closing scenes almost makes you wish she'd been a main character.
  • And of course Fionnuala Flanagan as Evelyn, who only appears in three scenes but makes you suitably as sad about her death as her sons are.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Sofia Vergara pre-Modern Family.
  • Taraji P Henson a few years before her Oscar nominated role in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Hard-boiled Bobby crying alone in the bathroom after seeing his mother's room.
  • Jack's death. At first, he's only shot in the chest, but as he's trying to get away a Mook shoots him again. It's not clear how many times. Still, he falls to the ground screaming in pain and for his brothers, Bobby in particular, and you can hear him over the gunfire. The entire fight becomes a desperate attempt to get to him, only for Jack to die minutes later. Everyone breaks down. To drive the point home, after Jack's funeral, Bobby looks up at the pictures on the wall; Jack's picture has a bullet hole through it.
  • Not to mention the boys watching the tape the store owner had of the thugs shooting their mother. It's so bad that Angel turns away before the actual shooting and they all can't help crying during her final moments.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Jack. Poor Jack. It seems as if the film is going to give him some character development or a pivotal moment to contribute to avenging Evelyn since he's the youngest and most affected by Evelyn's death and is generally teased by his brothers, but then he's abruptly murdered before anything can come to fruition or serve as payoff for his inclusion in the story. Unfortunately, it makes him nothing more than an extra brother to be killed off to make the other three inconsolably angry with Victor Sweet. It's sadly wasted potential, meant only to wring tears out of the audience instead of allowing Jack to be a fully three dimensional brother.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The film lightly touches on how Evelyn adopted the boys to save them from life on the street - all potentially interesting stories in their own right that could have been more compelling than a standard revenge plot. Evelyn herself is made into more of a symbol than a character.
• The Woobie: Jack is much more this trope than his brothers. He is not impulsive nor malicious, just seems to follow the steps of his brothers, and is likely to have been a good person if it were not for his childhood or life on the street. In addition, he is much more calm and sensitive than his older brothers, and it's implied that Jack had experienced a very traumatic childhood before Evelyn adopted him. And even worse, the discussions between his brothers often seem to make him uncomfortable. He's also constantly mocked in some deleted scenes. Not to mention that he's the only character in the main cast who suffers a tragic death, taking several minutes to bleed out from a gunshot.

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