Writer/director Rian Johnson’ s 2005 debut feature, Brick, was a bold exercise in genre-merging that combined  familiar concepts – the noir thriller and the high school coming of age drama – in unfamiliar ways.  It was enigmatic, compelling and heavily stylised, layered with little clues, ciphers, fake outs and pockets of intrigue. His follow up film, The Brothers Bloom, embodies few of the qualities exhibited with such aplomb in Brick: the denseness of the screenplay; the surreal atmospherics, urbane and otherworldly; the pinpoint assuredness of direction; the playful sense of toying with style and form.

The Brothers Bloom is a meandering and limply told con artist drama-comedy with a squidgy instead of a sting in its tail. It runs out of steam before it hits a brisk walk; the proverbial fat man at a fun run.

Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody) sham people out of money by creating elaborate stories – Stephen as the writer and Bloom the star – then acting them out and collecting money from the unfortunate saps who take them seriously. Bloom quits the game but, three months later, is easily convinced to rejoin and the bullshit-spinning brothers target a rich lonely young woman, Penelope (Rachel Weisz), who is improbably lured to join them on an overseas jaunt which evolves into a phoney smuggling caper of which she is the unknowing star (and victim).

Scene by scene the story plays out with barely a modicum of plausibility and the plotline, drifting and episodic, lacks detail and colour – a skeleton outline like a join the dots with just the dots. Johnson gives the impression he’s making things up as he goes along and just as full of empty bluster as his eponymous brothers. Like Brick, The Brothers Bloom feels heavily contrived, but this time not in a good way. Savvy viewers tend to approach con artist movies suspiciously, understanding that fooling the audience is almost always part of the process. But to enjoy The Brothers Bloom and its aloof, almost melodic atmosphere, at times vaguely reminiscent of a Wes Anderson pic, one needs to be especially generous in lieu of the film’s casual pace and crater-sized plot holes, but even then it’s a tough sell. Adrian Brody’s performance is a stellar example of cinematic sleep walking; his listless eyes and ssllooowww demeanour seem to the dictate the film’s tone and pace.

The Brothers Bloom’s Australian theatrical release date: November 12, 2009