Customer Reviews

Brother John

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This movie is filled with a since of righteousness and the importance of human respect. Although it is set in the termoil of the late 60's early 70's the story line is timeless. The film brings into focus, through the life of John (Sydney Poitier), a since of destiny for the human race. Truly an excellent work.

This is simply the greatest film work ever done and greatly overlooked. It is the inspiration for one of my books and is a timeless masterpiece.

It's unbelievable how much this story is overlooked.

This movie really makes you stop and think, about how you live your life and how others live theirs. Every person's life has a purpose. Each of us has to find out what that purpose is. Many don't know it, but you can live out your purpose and still enjoy life at the same time, affecting other people in the positive. This movie almost seemed to be from the mind of a pessimist, but some may say a realist. I think it reflects the moral conscious of that day. I have seen a good number of Sidney Poitier movies, and it amazes me how he can always keep that poker face in every tough seen (one calling for little to no expression when giving someone critical information). He ranks right up there with all of the leading men of Hollywood of old, great actors of back in the day.

After a two-minute introduction of credits accompanied by a nice winds score, an aging family doctor (played by Will Geer) in a small Southern town sets the plot in motion when he calls the Reverend Mac and his son, the prosecutor, to his home for a meeting concerning Brother John. Earlier that day, the Doc had examined Brother John's sister and found her to be suffering from an advanced stage of cancer, with only a few days to live at most.

But the story begins thirty years before, with the breach birth delivery of Brother John. The lights had gone out when an unexpected windstorm popped up out of nowhere. John grew up like any other boy but at the age of 16, he left town. He came back to his mother's death bed, then his father's death bed, and "sure as I'm standin' here, I know that boy, wonderin' God knows where, will show up at his sister's death bed".

John does show up at this sister's death bed, but this all takes place during a mass demonstration to organize a union at a factory in town, and the Doc's son and the sheriff are worried about outside agitators. And they suspect John. They slip into his motel room and rummage through his things, noting a passport that says he been all over the world including Cuba and Communist China (this was before Nixon opened Pandora's Box). When they later question him, he admits than he can speak Arabic, Russian, Swahili and a score of other languages. When they asked him how? he replied by saying he listened. How did you pay for the airfare? I worked, John said. In short, they suspect him of being a spy.

Only the Doc has figured out that Brother John is indeed a spy, but one from another planet. Brother John is an extra-terrestial. When the Reverend's daughter asked John about Judgement Day, he said maybe it wouldn't be that way - every man answering for his own sins, maybe man would answer as a species.

Later the Doc visited John in a jail cell, and admitted to John that he knew, saying that he thought it might be of some comfort to speak with someone who knew. He added that nobody believes him anyway. He asked John - "what have you seen?". John's short speech on what he has witnessed around the earth, from children being shoveled off the streets of Calcutta while the rich bask in the sun, to the wars in Biafra and Vietnam, is omnious and disturbing. John equates man to maggots on a rotten apple getting to leap off, first for the moon, then to the stars.

"Is that it then", Doc asks, "they don't want us out there?" John doesn't reply. When Doc asked if he's seen hope, a chance? John said he seen's what's there. "What about love?", asked Doc. "Man isn't just an animal, he is capable of love". John said that might not be enough. In the end, the Doc is there when John leaves this planet just as the Doc was there when he arrived.

This is a great movie, but one I'd recommend watching before you read these reviews which give our explanation of what we think it means. Poitier gives a very fine performance, as does Gerr and the rest of the cast. The cinematography (note creative use of light and grainy closeups) and soundtrack (hip Quincy Jones) is excellent (if a bit early 70's dated). Brother John may be an enigmatic character, but the plot is not so subtle in it's look at racism, war, worker and big industry relations, modern humanity and a wide range of human relationships.

In many ways this plays as an allegory of Jesus Christ's life, but it is also more. By the end I thought he was more John The Revelator than Christ. But he is also more wise, restrained and dispassionate than those traditional Christian characters. He is more like Christ as the Taoist sage witnessing and absorbing the world without resistance or judgment.

While the plot is clearly allegorical, with an axe to grind about social injustices, the beauty is that it makes you want to think and examine on your own. And simply live in the moment.

The very best acting I have seen by Portier. Very sensitive material for that period in US history. Wonderful story line.

This is a very entertaining and very underrated movie that flies beneath the radar,it's ahead of it's time.

1st off after looking across the net to no avail, Amazon was the one place I could find this DvD. A classic tale from the 70's starring Sidney Poitier. I got my DvD in a record time and in good shape, since this particualr DvD could only be found used.

Great movie . Leaves you guessing . If you are a Sidney Poitier fan you will love this movie.

The movie was reflecting how this man saw the world. He saw every nation in trouble because they forgot how to value life. People were leaping to the stars because they knew where salvation was. They made it. Each death he came to he knew because he was the death angel. The scene where the factories was about the pollution here on the earth. Man is killing himself and the words of the end we all should remember we will not be judged by what we are we will be judged by what we have become on judgement day. The wind is the result of force, a current. The atom in our lives is slow the current created from our movement is quick and powerful. We need to make sure it is a good current. This story is about John the harbinger and in modern days. A few more good words to remember there is no time.