Glenrothan

Directed by Brian Cox, Glenrothan follows estranged brothers (Cox’s Sandy and Alan Cumming’s Donal) as they reunite after spending forty years apart. It’s a promisingly pared-down premise that’s employed to almost watchable yet mostly disappointing effect by Cox, as the first-time filmmaker, armed with David Ashton’s screenplay, delivers a perpetually flat drama that rarely, if ever, becomes as engrossing as one might’ve anticipated – with the arms-length atmosphere perpetuated by Cox’s far-from-cinematic approach and a series of overwrought, lackluster periphery performances. There’s little doubt, then, that Glenrothan benefits from the superb efforts of its two stars, as both Cox and Cumming offer up compelling work that goes a long way towards keeping things interesting. (The inclusion of a few admittedly stirring sequences, including and especially a confrontation between Sandy and Donal, also doesn’t hurt.) By the time the aggressively sentimental closing stretch arrives, however, Glenrothan has cemented its place as a thoroughly hit-and-miss endeavor that is, by and large, more the latter than the former.

** out of ****