Brotherly Love
Mo (Fady Elsayed) idolizes his older brother Rashid (James Floyd), loves that he is cool, tough and isn't afraid to confront the other gangs which live in the Hackney area. And Mo is the first defend his brother when ever their traditional Egyptian parents question him. But whilst Mo wants to be like Rashid, Rashid wants more than that for Mo, wants to get him out of the area and put him in to a good college and the University so he can make something of himself. But when Mo gets involved in something to try and prove himself a tough guy it threatens to divide the brothers.
"My Brother the Devil" is like a modern take on the kitchen sink dramas of the 60s but with a coming of age angle to it. So that means on one hand we have Rashid who wants more, he wants to escape the area they are in and wants more for his brother. But on the other we have Mo who wants to be tough like Rashid but as he becomes involved gets his eyes opened to what it is really like to be involved, naive to what it is all really lie. And it makes for an interesting movie with James Floyd and Fady Elsayed both drawing you in with their good characterisation of brothers with their different ages highlighting their knowledge and experience.
The thing is that whilst the specifics make "My Brother the Devil" an entertaining movie which is well made and equally well acted it ends up a familiar movie. Quite simply I need more than my two hands to count the movies I have watched which either deal with one brother wanting out from the world he lives in or a brother wanting to be like his older sibling. And as such there is a certain familiarity which holds the movie back.
What this all boils down to is that "My Brother the Devil" is an entertaining movie which deals with some hard hitting subjects but when you remove the cultural and locale specifics it tells the same story which other movies have covered.
