Circumstances lead to three adult brothers moving in together and getting deeply involved in each other's love life in this independent drama from Edward Burns. As per 'Sidewalks of New York', which Burns would later helm, 'The Brothers McMullen' is a dialogue heavy-movie and at a fascinating one at that, full of naturalistic conversations and banter that makes it seem like the three leads really are brothers. While each brother has different romantic circumstances (one is a confirmed bachelor; another is scared of committing to his long-term girlfriend; the third is married) they all finding themselves battling their devout Catholic upbringing while trying to avoid being in the same situation as their mother - who endured a loveless marriage before eloping after their father died. As a narrative, there is not exactly a lot driving 'The Brothers McMullen', but the film suffices well as a portrait of three very human characters bouncing off one another and making their own choices despite each having the same upbringing. There are several memorable conversations (a banana representing manhood in particular) and the stringy background music suits the material well. One could complain about the female characters being less well fleshed out than their male counterparts, however, this is, after all, a film about brotherhood and the mixed merits of brotherly advice.

First time i saw this 10 years ago, i thought it was pretty good. Its been on cable more lately and found myself watching it a couple more times,and its grown on me more. Its funny at times. Also very serious at others. As sorta a non practicing Irish Catholic myself, It brought home allot of situations i can relate to. Its also sorta a NY type comedy, with the language and City backgrounds. Covers allot of relationship topics. I sorta call this a chick flick for guys. None of that stupid comedy/phony romance type movie you often see nowadays. But more real life situation. Little things, like the fight Burns has with his brother over drinking a beer in the morning. Now thats the way it is in real life.

EDWARD BURNS is the writer/producer/director/actor of this charming piece of casual film-making on a shoestring budget that he turned out twelve years ago, obviously based on characters he cares about and knows intimately. It has the intimate immediacy of MARTY, another such tale about a lonely Brooklyn butcher looking for true love and the right marriage prospect to end his bachelor days.In THE BROTHERS McMULLEN we have MARTY compounded by three--namely, the Irish brothers on Long Island who seem to indulge in endless dialog about life, love and the pursuit of happiness while sipping their favorite beers, each involved in a troublesome relationship that has them questioning their inner conflicts born by a Catholic conscience.It's not exactly up to the Woody Allen standard of such tales, but the dialog is fresh enough and natural, the modest settings are appropriate for the story and the jaunty Irish music on the soundtrack does its job.Nothing complex here. Just a warm, engaging, occasionally funny tale of average guys struggling with their fixed ideas of moral values, each unable to come to terms with inner conflicts--and two of them simply unable to make commitments to the women they love.The film is really carried by the three brothers: EDWARD BURNS as the one least able to commit, and JACK MULCAHY and MIKE McGLONE as his troubled siblings.Summing up: Nothing really special, but it did win a couple of awards at film festivals.

I wound up watching the movie by accident and it turned out to be an experience much like passing road kill: It's so horrid you can't look away.And because it was so awful, I thought it might be fun to read a few reviews of it (reading reviews of bad movies is somewhat cathartic; you watch something awful and then let someone else vent about your wasted time....). What I found here was somewhat unbelievable. Somebody actually thought it had some redeeming features. It doesn't.This film did not just have a surfeit of uninteresting characters who spoke extraordinarily turgid dialogue (one character says to the other "I don't think we should see ONE ANOTHER for awhile...." Nobody, really nobody, ever says ONE ANOTHER except in church.) It was also woodenly acted, nonsensically directed and had a plot so boring I kept switching to Tony Robbins infomercials for excitement. Shoestring budget or not, there's no excuse for inflicting this kind of movie on the paying public. Okay, I didn't actually pay to see it because it was on Bravo, but I paid my cable bill and that should count for something.Bottom line is that this movie isn't funny, isn't sad, isn't thought provoking and isn't interesting. It is annoying.