My Brother the Devil Review

 

My Brother the Devil is a 2012 British film written and directed by Sally El Hosaini. It follows two brothers, Rashid and Mo, who are born to two Egyptian immigrant parents. Mo is young and impressionable and looks up to his older brother Rashid and admires him for his lifestyle. Rashid is a criminal but he does not want that life for his brother, at every opportunity he reminds Mo to stay in school and keep straight, unlike himself. The brothers live in Hackney, a diverse place culturally but also dangerous, Rashid struggles to keep his brother out of the gang that he is drawn into. An encounter with a photographer named Sayyid makes Rashid question if what he is doing is right and starts to become scarce around the gang which raises a lot of suspicions, and allows the younger Mo to find a way into the gang. The film is a clever take on Muslim culture, as the young Mo idolizes his brother to begin with until his brother’s secret comes out and the fact that he is Gay. Mo is not accepting of this and instead formulates a lie in which Sayyid and Rashid are in fact part of some jihadist plot. This is clever because it shows Mo’s acceptance and even admiration of the fact that his brother is a criminal yet once he finds out about his sexuality he feels that him being a Jihadist is better than him being Gay.

In my opinion I felt that Rashid’s character arc was poorly done, the way his reveal of being gay was handled felt unimportant and was rather used as a plot device to disrupt the equilibrium as it did not feature prominently or even show he struggled with his sexuality to begin with which made the sudden reveal seem forced and just there to cause a disruption where as if it was shown that he struggled with his sexuality from the outset it would have made the reveal more powerful and had some meaning. This is my biggest gripe with the film as it’s take on gang and Muslim culture was powerful and Mo’s character arc was done well yet it seemed the writing for Rashid was not up to the Level that Mo’s was.