Most people who get into trouble later claim that they didn’t have a proper clue what they were getting into. This includes Tom Martinez, author of the book which served as basis for Brotherhood of Murder, 1999 television film directed by Martin Bell. The plot begins in 1983, shortly after Martinez (played by William Baldwin) is discharged from US military. His girlfriend Susan (played by Kelly Lynch) is pregnant, so he decides to start a family. The life gets very hard because all jobs he gets are low-paid and he also loses many of them due to Affirmative Action programs that favour African Americans. Martinez gets very resentful and it doesn’t take a lot to accept invitation by gregarious Walther West (played by Stephen E. Miller) to join The Order, extreme right-wing group led by charismatic Bob Matthews (played by Peter Gallagher). The Order wants to wage war against blacks, Jews and bring down the US government. Martinez takes part in its activities that are financed through armed robberies and counterfeiting money. But when The Order starts murdering people and when FBI takes interest in it, Martinez begins to have second thoughts and wonder whether he truly made the right choice.
Brotherhood of Murder tries to give more accurate or, at least, insider’s version of the real events that served as loose inspiration for two feature films - Talk Radio by Oliver Stone and Betrayed by Costa-Gavras. Script by Robert J. Avrech in the opening scenes gives convincing background for the protagonists and his decision to find outlet for his frustration by embracing extremist ideology. However, in the second half Brotherhood of Murder takes too many television film cliches and depends on audience accepting Martinez’s claims that he actually never really knew what he was doing and what kind of vile ideology supported. William Baldwin plays his role in adequate way, although he is not able to convince us that Martinez’s change of heart was genuine or just an opportune way to get out of trouble. Peter Gallagher is, on the other hand, very convincing as charismatic villain who could easily sway impoverished, desperate and frustrated people to his cause. Director Martin Bell does more than a decent job of compressing the plot into hour of half of running time, thus making Brotherhood of Murder digestible for the casual audience.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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