With movie theaters and streaming platforms overflowing with sequels and remakes, new and fresh ideas are always welcome. The Devil and the Daylong Brothers is a daring project. Directed by Brandon McCormick, The Devil and the Daylong Brothers mixes action, fantasy and music to tell its story. This combination of genres isn’t always effective, but at least it’s often entertaining. Written by McCormick, based on a story by McCormick and Nicholas Kirk, The Devil And the Daylong Brothers doesn’t add layers to its storytelling approach just to become gimmicky or be an experiment. In its best moments, it can evoke some Quentin Tarantino vibes and even a bit of David Cronenberg when it comes to its approach to violence.
What Is ‘The Devil And The Daylong Brothers’ About?

The Devil And the Daylong Brothers tells the story of three siblings who are pretty much damned. Sons of the same father but from different mothers, they had their souls offered to the Devil himself before they were even born. As adults, they decide to band together to reclaim their souls and hold their father (Keith Carradine) accountable for the damage he caused them. It’s a harrowing task, and one that’s made even harder by agents of chaos that get in the way of the brothers and their mission.
More often than not, The Devil and the Daylong Brothers’ musical segments are a nice addition. Unfortunately, the music doesn’t always move the story forward. One could argue that most of the musical sequences could be removed from the story and not make a difference. Fortunately for McCormick, the first and last musical scenes work so well that you can even forgive and forget the other ones that are not so good.
‘The Devil And The Daylong Brothers’ Can Be Frantic

Image via Jason Fobart/Quiver Distribution

Even if you’re not big on musicals, there’s a whole Tarantino-esque aspect to The Devil And the Daylong Brothers that might grab you. Ish (Brendan Bradley), Enoch (Nican Robinson) and Abe (Jordon Bolden) embark on an extremely violent path where everyone is out to get them, and the way that they need to fight off enemies to find their father will often remind you of Death Proof, and the characters trying to one-up each other has echoes of The Hateful Eight and Reservoir Dogs.
At the same time, McCormick never lets the violence get so absurd that it gets funny. With each violent encounter, you do believe that the trio of brothers is in danger, and they might not make it to the end of their journey. In one particularly gruesome falling out with a priest, the violence feels pretty real, and that’s when the Cronenbergian side kicks in, with fighting and conflict scenes that (mostly) refuse to cut away and force you to deal with the gravity of it — even if you don’t feel sorry for who’s suffering the violence.

Related

10 Movies To Watch if You Love Quentin Tarantino

These movies had your curiosity; now, they have your attention.

However, when it comes to the brothers themselves, their personalities never feel distinct enough from each other, in the sense that you wouldn’t feel a difference if it was only one guy on this revenge quest. They have the same goal, but they hardly disagree with each other or have issues they have to get past to work together. They’re neither dramatic nor funny enough to make us connect with them. You know they lived cursed lives, but the movie expects you to take this at face value, because we never see the hell they went through to want to get to the point they are. Had the movie dedicated time to letting us empathize with them, we’d end up a lot more invested in the Ish, Enoch and Abe story.
Instead, what we get is a fourth member of the group, a woman named Frankie (Rainey Qualley) who is also the sole female character of the entire movie. The movie tries to make it seem that she has her own interests, but she ends up mostly forgotten by the story and doesn’t add much to the trajectory of the brothers except for a side quest or two.
The Devil And The Daylong Brothers is brimming with potential. It’s not afraid to take some risks, which is more than you can say for over half of the movies that get released every year. Its only setback is that it puts its style ahead of character development, which can work if you just go into overdrive like Mad Max: Fury Road and John Wick do. But if you don’t do that, you’re just stuck with an action movie that looks and feels different but has unmemorable characters.

The Devil and the Daylong Brothers

This Tarantino-esque adventure takes risks, but ultimately falls flat.

Release Date

January 31, 2025

Runtime

112 minutes

Director

Brandon McCormick

Producers

Nicholas Kirk

Brendan Bradley

Ish Daylong

Nican Robinson

Enoch Daylong

Pros & Cons

Boldly mixes violent action and music.
Most songs work within the movie’s context.
The Tarantino vibe and rhythm of the story works pretty well.

The brothers don’t have distinct personalities.
Some songs don’t move the story forward.
The one female character is quickly forgotten.