{"id":902481,"date":"2026-09-23T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/902481\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T12:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T12:00:14","slug":"brothers-review-matthew-mcconaughey-and-woody-harrelson-in-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/902481\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Brothers’ Review: Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFor a sense of the decline in creative ambition between Matthew McConaughey<\/a> and Woody Harrelson<\/a>\u2018s collaboration in HBO\u2019s True Detective and Apple TV\u2019s Brothers<\/a>, one would have to imagine that after making Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Robert Redford and Paul Newman had made a movie that was primarily about how \u201cRobert Redford\u201d and \u201cPaul Newman\u201d loved to hang out and discuss how much fun it was to have made Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe most creatively adventurous thing you can accuse Brothers of doing is taking two huge Hollywood stars and putting them in scripts that would have been deemed insufficiently creatively adventurous for ABC\u2019s TGIF block in the mid-\u201990s \u2014 full of endless perfunctory bickering and bouts of limp farce, topped off with platitudes about \u201cfamily\u201d and \u201cfriendship\u201d and how \u201cincest isn\u2019t incest if you aren\u2019t blood relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBrothers\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tGood for a couple of chuckles, little more.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAirdate: Wednesday, Sept. 23 (Apple)
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Natalie Martinez, Brittany Ishibashi, Holland Taylor, Nolan Almeida, Ella Grace Helton, Noah Carganilla, Highdee Kuan, Oona Yaffe
Creators: Matthew McConaughey & Woody Harrelson and David West Read and Lee Eisenberg\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tMuch as the Emmys<\/a> recently asked the longtime friends to vamp for five or 10 minutes while presenting, in order to salvage an awards show with no particular direction, Brothers asks them to vamp for eight 30-minute episodes, in order to salvage a TV show with no particular direction.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a tribute, then, to the charismatic energy generated by McConaughey and Harrelson\u2019s partnership that no matter how hacky some of its sitcom tropes are, Brothers is generally, if never propulsively, engaging.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201ccreated by\u201d credit on Brothers goes to McConaughey & Harrelson and David West Read<\/a> and Lee Eisenberg<\/a>, which is a circuitous way of saying that Eisenberg (Lessons in Chemistry) replaced Read (The Big Door Prize) late in production. Wherever the tone of the series started or ended, whichever parts were produced under its original concept versus during reconceptions or reshoots, nothing resembling a cohesive voice ever emerges.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cbased on a true rumor\u201d comedy begins with Woody (Harrelson) struggling to deal with the emotional volatility of his household of women \u2014 wife Joy (Brittany Ishibashi) and daughters Olive (Highdee Kuan) and Kai (Oona Yaffe) \u2014 in the aftermath of Olive\u2019s broken engagement. He announces that what the family needs is a roadtrip in the souped-up bus known at The Mothership.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe destination? An unannounced visit to the McConaughey family \u2014 Matthew (McConaughey), wife Valentina (Natalie Martinez), teenage son Wyatt (Nolan Almeida), daughter Clara (Ella Grace Helton), younger son River (Noah Carganilla) and Matthew\u2019s mother Mama Mac (Holland Taylor<\/a>) \u2014 at Matthew\u2019s ranch (not played by his real ranch) outside of Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n

\n\tWoody\u2019s arrival finds Matthew at a crossroads, as he\u2019s planning a speech for a high school event honoring his late father and contemplating a run for governor, overseen by the politically vicious Gwen (Lisa Gilory, possibly coming from a different show, but definitely stealing every scene in which she appears).<\/p>\n

\n\tComplication ensues when a late night conversation between Woody and Mama Mac reveals the possibility that Matthew\u2019s deceased dad might not have been his biological father and that Matthew and Woody may be actual brothers in addition to devoted buddies.<\/p>\n

\n\tFurther complications ensue as Wyatt and Kai\u2019s flirtation escalates in ways that are supposed to make viewers feel uncomfortable, but not grossed out.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf you\u2019re not sure if that\u2019s a sturdy enough foundation upon which to build a TV series, Brothers gives no indication that it\u2019s sure either.<\/p>\n

\n\tWoody and Matthew are playing confirmatory versions of themselves \u2014 fictionalized and superficial avatars that, rather than surprise you for a single second, suggest that what you\u2019ve seen is what you get from these two very public figures.<\/p>\n

\n\tMatthew is prone to meandering, pretentious monologues \u2014 his memoir and Lincoln commercials are acknowledged \u2014 but he\u2019s a perfectly idealized Texan, in favor of both individual rights and collective empathy. Whether or not it\u2019s true, he\u2019s presented as a heavily present and structure-loving father, dedicated to folksy virtues and traditions.<\/p>\n

\n\tWoody is prone to meandering and hippy-dippy monologues, as a weed-loving anarchist. While he may be freaked out by the aforementioned household of women, his detached parenting style has yielded a pair of smart, independent-minded women who appear not to have anything resembling lives of their own.<\/p>\n

\n\tMatthew and Woody bicker, but it\u2019s from a place of love, respect and shared references to their respective bodies of work (though never their shared collaboration on EdTV).<\/p>\n

\n\tDepending on the episode you\u2019re watching, Brothers is a very meta but largely unstructured comedy in which the interaction between its stars and our awareness of their identities is the source of its periodic laughs, or else a very clich\u00e9-driven sitcom about an odd couple of friends, or else an even more meta commentary on clich\u00e9-driven sitcoms.<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know why anybody would care about any episodic storyline, given that I legitimately couldn\u2019t tell if A-plots like \u201cWoody and Matthew chaperone a high school dance\u201d or a \u201cWoody and Matthew wear silly latex makeup so that they can debut a musical act in a coffee shop and find out if people like them for their talent\u201d \u2014 ones I swear came out of the \u201ctoo obvious for Hannah Montana\u201d discard pile \u2014 are meant to be amusing on their own (they\u2019re not) or a commentary on bad TV plotting. But I\u2019m not sure Brothers finds a recent to care about the big \u201cAre they biological brothers or not?\u201d question, either.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe two performances at the center are broad yet naturalistic, and nobody can dispute that Harrelson and McConaughey are convincingly able to play themselves. But if Gilroy feels like she\u2019s coming in from a different show, most of the rest of the the supporting performances feel like they\u2019re coming in from four or five different shows.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou have Taylor in from the kind of multi-cam that she\u2019s proven to be so terrific at, but she often treats lines that aren\u2019t punchlines like they\u2019re punchlines, with head-scratching results. Martinez and Ishibashi play McConaughey and Harrelson\u2019s real-life spouses like easily exasperated sitcom spouses, half disapproving wet blankets and half the only sane people in their respective families. Kuan and Yaffe, though both extremely likable, are understated, or else somebody forgot to write their characters individual personality traits other than \u201cWoody Harrelson\u2019s daughter.\u201d Matthew\u2019s three kids are just TV archetypes, rarely resembling real people at all.<\/p>\n

\n\tSomebody like Gilroy or Jeff Kober and Barry Corbin (popping up occasionally as a pair of geriatric gangsters) will come and go in situations knowingly designed to feel contrived. But then the series will do a documentary-style montage of McConaughey meeting real Austin people in real Austin locations.<\/p>\n

\n\tSometimes the directors \u2014 Trent O\u2019Donnell, Jason Winer and Erin O\u2019Malley \u2014 capture a loose, unforced tone, with handheld realism and very pleasant photography of Texas settings. Then there are over-lit, flatly framed scenes that would be at home in a broadcast or basic cable half-hour.<\/p>\n

\n\tNone of it, regardless of style or tone, has anything interesting to say about stardom in general, nor about the specific type of approachable Everyman stardom enjoyed by McConaughey and Harrelson, modern families nor, really, about anything at all. I smiled here and there at Brothers, but I don\u2019t remember experiencing more mirth than the occasional chuckle, and the show leaves nothing to latch onto or dwell on for a second past the conclusion of each installment.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf Adam Sandler\u2019s greatest stroke of genius has been getting movie studios and Netflix to pay for and film his vacations with all of his close friends, one might as well give McConaughey credit for the inverse, getting Apple to pay him to hang out roughly at home with his one best friend. Calling Brothers \u201cMatthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson\u2019s Grown-Ups\u201d doesn\u2019t offer much incentive to watch. But it properly sets expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a sense of the decline in creative ambition between Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson\u2018s collaboration in HBO\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":902482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,9751,447,470723,134,470724,470725,28798,150299],"class_list":["post-902481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brothers","tag-celebrities","tag-david-west-read","tag-entertainment","tag-holland-taylor","tag-lee-eisenberg","tag-matthew-mcconaughey","tag-woody-harrelson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}