- Content: “Enduring Brotherly Love”
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Watch:
What You Need To Know:
Despite a slow beginning, BROTHERS ON THREE is well made. It tells an emotional story about the bond the cadets build on the field and off. BROTHERS ON THREE has a strong Christian, moral, patriotic worldview. It’s about building strong leaders through values like duty, trust, sacrifice, commitment, and brotherly love. The greatest of these is love, however. For example, with the game on the line, the team’s kicker is told, “No matter what happens, know that I love you.” BROTHERS ON THREE also stresses heroes who lay down their lives for their brothers in arms and their country. Sadly, however, it has several strong obscenities. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.
Content:
The dominant worldview is Strong Christian, moral, patriotic worldview about the U.S. Army’s championship rugby team focuses on sacrifice, love, duty, and serving one’s county, with some references to laying down’s one life for one’s brothers in arms, plus a reference to one cadet’s homosexual roommate;
12 obscenities (including seven “f” words) and five light profanities;
Violence included picking up and tackling people into the ground with some bleeding, and some violent clips from the movie BLACK HAWK DOWN, including explosions and a leg injury sustained in battle;
No sex scenes but one cadet talks about his roommate coming out as homosexual, and the cadet says it wasn’t a problem;
One instance of upper male nudity when a man lifts up his shirt to show a tattoo he got;
A handful of instances of alcohol use. One instance was a discussion about cadets twice being caught for underage drinking that was punished, people around a campfire in one scene sing “Tennessee Whiskey” which includes the words whiskey, wine and brandy, and at the end of the rugby, some cadets go to a pub and celebrate with a drink;
No smoking or drug use; and,
A man admits he gambles.
More Detail:
BROTHERS ON THREE starts off with some much-needed information. Less than one percent of military officers reaches the rank of General Officer. However, West Point Military Academy’s rugby players are 300 percent more likely to reach that rank than other West Point cadets. Thus, the rugby team isn’t just there to build great players; it’s also there to develop leaders. That’s why everyone who goes to West Point Military Academy is required to participate in sports. West Point wants to build leaders.
The movie then explains a bit about rugby. Its most similar sport is America’s favorite sport, football. It’s very similar in that players need to drive the ball down the field to an endzone and can also kick a ball through upright posts. It is also a very physical sport, involving tackling and knocking people to the ground. However, one important difference between football and rugby is that rugby doesn’t have nearly the amount of padding. In fact, the players barely have any padding at all.
However, the most important part about playing rugby at West Point Military Academy is the values they instill in their players. The three values are trust, commitment and, most importantly, love. All of these values are what they believe make the best platoons on the field. With rugby being incredibly physical, it closely matches what combat is like. That is why the Academy develops those successful platoon traits into these players, because they will be the leaders of platoons. Also, these leaders are built on the field because, once the game starts, coaches are hands off. It is a continuous game where the only scheduled break is halftime, and the players have to make all the decisions.
With that out of the way, the movie shows what happens during the rugby season. The army starts off strong, storming out of the gates with seven consecutive wins. To end the first half of the season, they had their rivalry game against the Navy. With a hard-fought battle, the Army fell short.
The loss to the Navy kicks off a rough patch of losing, plagued with injuries. Lots of key contributors left it all out on the field but were sidelined. These setbacks could easily be pointed to as the cause of the loss. Despite these setbacks, the Army barely squeaks into the playoffs.
Now that their season is win or go home, they need to put everything on the line. They need to show how they grew into their roles, how they work together as a team, and how they lead each other through past setbacks.
Eventually, however, the cadets must move on with life. The seniors must say goodbye to the field they called home and move forward to the next stop of their military careers.
BROTHERS ON THREE is put together well. However, the movie is a bit of a mixed bag. It takes a long time to try to explain the sport. This is nice for people who have no knowledge of the game, but this part drags, and the explanation isn’t always clear. This problem is especially a drawback to people who know the sport, because they have to sit through the explanation. That said, the rest of the movie is captivating. It tells an emotional story about the bond that West Point’s cadet builds on the field and off it.
BROTHERS ON THREE has a strong Christian, moral, patriotic worldview. For example, the story’s essence is built on duty, sacrifice and love. The movie doesn’t focus solely on the boys playing rugby, but past and future cadets as well. It also showcases military heroes who’ve laid their lives on the line to serve their country. Ultimately, however, BROTHERS ON THREE centers on the love these young men build up for each other. By the end of the season, they are no longer just teammates; they are family. Sadly, though, the movie has several strong R-rated obscenities that aren’t bleeped. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.
