Brothers’ Nest, written by Jaime Browne, directed by and starring Clayton Jacobson - Eight out of 10

Brothers’ Nest, written by Jaime Browne, directed by and starring Clayton Jacobson

Eight out of 10

This is a superb, very dark comedy.

Two brothers plan a murder and two actors that seem to be brothers themselves portray them:

The excellent Shane Jacobson and Clayton Jacobson, the latter is also the director of this excellent feature.

They arrive at the house of Rodger, the man their mother has partnered and they intend to kill him because they expect that after Mum dies, they would lose the land in the consequent legal procedure.

Their mother has cancer and they know she only has a few months to live – if this is correct, the figure was three months.

Clayton Jacobson has the role of Jeff, the older brother and apparently the mastermind of the operation and the one who is most worried and paranoid about the future and the details of the killing.

He makes his brother Terry aka Shane Jacobson urinate in a bottle that he has brought along in one of the backpacks, for he insists that there would be an inquiry and they would look for DNA traces to identify the murderer.

Terry protests that they had lived here and hence the place is crawling with their DNA…

Yes, but that is old DNA, not new, replies the head of operations

What about if I need to take a shit, asks Terry, but his older brother, who pretends to be so much wiser, says that if he does not want to take it in his hands he must suffer and wait until later

Alas, the younger sibling has forgotten the suicide note that was part of the plan, designed by the clever criminal who controls the details so well…

Until their target arrives, that is

Initially, the killing would have to be explained, covered by a suicide pretense, wherein the victim leaves a note explaining his deed.

Terry writes a few words, but the mastermind is not satisfied:

We need a suicide note, not a suicide memo!

All this is senseless and amusing, when the supposed victim arrives in his car, an old model Mercedes and he starts knocking at the door, stating that he knows there is someone inside.

When he warns that if the people in do not come at the door he would alert the police, Terry walks out and talks to the man who has taken the place of his late father, who had committed suicide.

It is plain that the two brothers blame Rodger for the death of their father and the intention of killing him for what “might happen” – as Terry best points out – is also a revenge for the loss of the parent.

In fact, Terry is confronting to some extent the man he pities for what they intend to do to him, asking him when he had met his father – when they first came together, Rodger says he had not noticed the brothers’ parent.

As he is talking to Rodger, Jeff comes running into the bathroom, pushing the old man into the tub, then trying to electrocute him with a toaster that should plunge into the water, but it does not.

The cord is too short and the killer has to come with an extension, fiddle with the connection and then insert the machine into the element that would murder the man who had only three months left to live with their mother.

Now comes the difficult task of envisaging how to turn this even around so that it fits with their intention of not going to jail for forty years, to become the victims of abuse from inmates.

Jeff has talked over the phone, pretending he is in Sydney, with an especially designed apparatus that would send the coordinates with which they want to deceive the investigators of the suspicious death.

For many minutes now, if not for years before this terrible night, the brothers have drifted apart, with the patronizing, superior and too big for his boots Jeff demeaning and insulting his younger brother who had not really wanted to commit this murder.

To bring things to a nadir, somebody starts using the horn in the car outside, the public sees that it is the mother of the brothers, who comes walking with an aid and then Jerry says when they face her that the scenario in which Rodger came home with his partner, left her in the car and then went into the bath quickly to kill himself would not stick.

There are some phenomenal scenes in this excellent comedy- thriller.