The Brotherhood of Justice (1986 TV Movie)
7/10
Entertaining TV film starring several soon-to-be stars
3 December 2014
The obvious selling point for The Brotherhood of Justice these days is that it showcases Keanu Reeves, Billy Zane and Keifer Sutherland before they were famous. In the cases of Reeves and Sutherland, they would in fact become Hollywood A-Listers not long after this was released. It's a teen movie set in California about a gang of high school vigilantes who wish to teach a lesson to local criminals and fellow classmates they dislike. What starts out as fairly playful increasingly becomes quite dark as the gang gain confidence in their activities, their actions become more criminal themselves.

This was seemingly a pilot for a series that never was. It's also based on real events that happened a year earlier in a Texas school. It actually makes for quite an entertaining and interesting enough TV movie. The gang and their actions are presented in shades of grey, with the audience only meant to sympathise with them up to a point. It means there is some melodrama generated, while at the same time having a fairly suspenseful parallel narrative to compliment this. It's made for TV, so it does have certain limitations but, mainly, this works pretty well and will especially be of interest to those interested in the young soon-to-be film stars. It also ends in a quite abrupt and surprising way that I personally thought was quite good.
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