Brawler

You might expect a movie titled Brawler to be a literal affair, but director Chris Silverston kicks the crap out of familiar genre fare and punches the screen with raw and gritty originality, as the telling of a common tale of two brothers, sibling rivalry, and a fateful love triangle gets the wind knocked out of it with the kinetic force of such pugilistic cousins as Mean Streets and Fight Club.

Inspired by a true story of two brothers embroiled in New Orleans’ illicit riverboat boxing, Brawler follows older brother Charlie (Nathan Grubbs) and younger brother Bobby (Marc Senter) down into the blood thirsty hull of the offshore underground mob-run world. True life writes the best stories and in the best stories it is always a woman who challenges the harmony between the heroes. In Brawler it is Kat, Charlie’s wife, who changes the rules and finally makes the two sibling fighters, who strive for significance and fight for survival against their opponents, ultimately fight each other.

In Brawler, fighting style reveals character, the young riverboat brawlers are let free to foul in the fight cage once gambling crowds are onboard and the barge’s gang blank is pulled from the shores of authorities. –Oldenburg Film Festival