Stealth Entertainment
By Scott Lumley
July 3, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.
Hopefully we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.
The Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)
It's hard to sum up The Brotherhood of the Wolf in just one word, but I think it can be done. The word I'm going to choose is "bizarre". This is a movie that is literally all over the place thematically and plot wise.
The movie stars Samuel Bihan as Gregoire de Fronsac, Vincent Cassell (Eastern Promises, Ocean's 12 and Ocean's 13, Irreversible) as Jean Francois de Morangais, Emelie Duquenne as Marianne de Morangais, Monica Bellucci (Shoot'em Up, The Matrix Reloaded, The Brothers Grimm) as Sylvia and Mark Dacoscos (The Crow TV series and believe it or not, the current chairman in Iron Chef America) as Mani, Gregoire's native American sidekick. There are a number of actors in this film that look to have spectacular resumes, but as I don't so much speak French as mangle it, I haven't seen any of them. They could all be masterpieces, or they could be truly representative of a culture that worships at the font of Jerry Lewis. I don't know.
What we have here is a film that is supposedly about a surreptitious plot to incite sedition against the current king of France. The story is told by a nobleman biding time as an angry mob waits with the mandatory pitchforks and torches. Personally, if an angry mob is waiting outside to take me to the guillotine, there are several other things I'm going to try first aside from storytelling. Escaping or hiding seems pretty high on the list actually. Storytelling? Not so much.
At any rate, the nobleman tells a tale of bygone days when a monstrous wolf was terrorizing the countryside and slaughtering poor maidens left and right. And they are not kidding about the slaughtering. Barely five minutes into the movie we are treated to one such nameless victim frantically attempting to escape the beast and failing miserably. Gregoire de Fronsac is a scientist, philosopher, martial artist, tracker, hunter and explorer, so he is dispatched to deal with the problem. I think it's a good call actually. When people start showing up dead it's always wise to send in the guy with the skill set similar to Batman.
The gruesomely savaged corpse is examined by Gregoire and Mani, as they have been sent to deal with the situation as unrest in the countryside makes the King look bad. Gregoire examines the remains and confers with Mani and they both immediately decide that whatever this thing is, it's not a wolf. What it is, they don't know, but they know what it's not.
There is some dialogue and back and forth play here and other characters get introduced. Jean Francois limps into the picture, his arm hidden as he nurses an injury he received while travelling in Africa. His sister accompanies him as well and dotes on him while trying not to drool over Gregoire and the loincloth wearing Mani.
Palace intrigue and backroom politics fly into the plot, the army is dispatched to kill this thing dead and they proceed to slaughter a pile of wolves, none of which are obviously the killer. The general in charge of the army proclaims that the beast is slain and there is much rejoicing. Gregoire protests this, as the bites marks on the victims are much, much larger than anything the soldiers killed. Gregoire is quite effectively told to shut his trap and play along as the King needs the problem solved now. So Gregoire dutifully takes the carcasses of the slain Wolves and creates a stuffed Monster out of them. Once he has convinced the populace that the beast is dead, he's dispatched back to the area to actually kill the beast.
From there, the plot gets even weirder. Gregoire discovers a small cultish group dedicated to the overthrow of the king. They appear to be involved somehow with the beast, and they have also insinuated themselves into the local authorities as well. Gregoire and Mani go on a raid of their hideout, but get separated and Mani is killed.
Gregoire is saddened, no closer to figuring out what beast is doing all the damage and suddenly gets jailed for no reason that I could decipher. Apparently it's treason, but I'm unclear on how exactly it would be treason as he's doing EXACTLY what the King told him to. It's ultimately irrelevant, as shortly after he is incarcerated and awaiting trial, he gasps and dies a painful death from poison.
Except he's not actually dead. Sylvia, Gregoire's prostitute/spy friend - who appears naked several times in the film, by the way - just drugged him to make him look dead so she could smuggle his "corpse" out of prison. Gregoire's condition gets upgraded to not dead, he spends a moment recovering and then gets his sword and charges off to battle the bad guys that framed him.
This is where things get truly weird. There's a huge battle between Gregoire and the cult and it's about as lopsided as it can possibly be as Gregoire plays Cuisinart with them. He slices, he dices, he crushes rebellion, and truly he is a talented man. Gegoire's onslaught is halted by the leader of the cult, who is wielding an elongating bone whip/sword that he flails around like a kung fu master. No, I'm not making that up. He has a bone whipsword that grows and shrinks as he needs it to. It's couldn't have been any weirder if he'd pulled out a lightsaber or a chainsaw.
At any rate, Brotherhood of the Wolf is possibly one of the most unique films I have ever seen. On one hand, the plot is not so much complex as it is impenetrable. Additionally, the ending is completely against the grain of the whole film, and actually borders on the absurd. On the other, it has the Chairman in a loincloth and Monica Bellucci naked a lot. I'll leave it up to you to decide what's more important here.