My Brothers Keeper

G-Money: "Am I my brother's keeper?"
Nino Brown: "YES I AM!"

(Nino Brown then shoots G-Money in the head)

- From the movie New Jack City

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Last Sunday, I met up with Marie and I decided that we should watch The Bra Boys. I convinced her that it was a romantic comedy centralised around the themes of family, brotherly love and about Australian surfing culture.

No, I am kidding, of course I didn't say that!

The Bra Boys is a documentary currently showing at many of those indie type cinemas like Dendy and The Palace. The story is centered around the four Abberton Brothers - Koby, Jai, Sunny and the other one (kinda like the third tenor who know one really knows).

The primary focuses is on the suburb Maroubra and the group of people know as the "Bra Boys" which hang around Maroubra beach, which the Abberton brothers are a part of. "Bra" is short for Maroubra in case you didn;t know.

The movie does go into the world of the Bra Boys through the Abberton brothers. They are surf heads, in that their whole life is centered around surfing. Sunny and Koby compete on the world stage and the brothers travel the world looking for the best waves.

Koby Abberton - Back

However, their world comes crashing down when a violent standover man Anthony Hines threatens Jai Abberton and to rape his girlfriend. Hines pulls a gun on Jai, and in the ensuing struggle Jai manages to shoot Hines with the gun. Jai then is charged with murder and faces a maximum of 30 years jail time. Koby refuses to give evidence against his brother and to co-operate with the police and is charged as an accessory. He faces 15 years jail. If you want to know the rest, see the actual movie.....punk!

Are the Bra Boys a gang?

The doco goes to great pains to reposition the group to not be a gang.I have tried to avoid mentioning the word "gang" til now as it has negative connocations. But let's not kid ourselves here.

The Bra Boys have gotten a lot of publicitiy from fighting, rioting and the notorious incident where they fought like 100 police at the Police Xmas party. I believe and this is my own opinion, while the Bra Boys are not exactly a gang they do have gang-like elements.

They are not into committing crime like drug dealing, and shootings but the fact that they do get into terrotorial fights and the movie does also depict the Bra Boys defending their terrority against outside gangs trying to invade Maroubra in the 70's and 80's. If that is not a gang, then give me one of these "2053" Bra Boy tattoos!

That's another factor - the tattoos. if you have been a member of the Bra Boys for 5-1o years and done your time as a member, you get approval from the older boys to get a tatt. So they'll have a massive "bra boys" tatt on their back, on the familar tatt of "my brothers keeper" or the postcode of "2053".

The movie is a bit of a sellout of the Bra Boys. And they are also come up with crap about how the Bra Boys had an influence in stopping the race riots in Cronulla by meeting up with these Biker lebbos in Brighton. Apparently they reached out to their "connections" and played a role in calming down the race riots. Yeah they did a bit, but I hardly think that influenced any one.

Conclusion

Before I forget, the story is narrated by Russell "put the telephone down" Crowe. He chimes in every now and then but I'm surprised he actually took up this role. He doens't add any credibility to the movie.

The movie wasn't that fascinating and didn't really tell me anything about the Bra Boys that i didn't already know. The one good thing they had was awesome surf shots and they depict how crazy the Abberton brothers are when they surf.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10. Wait for the DVD.

I'm out like Biker Lebbos in Brighton,

DJ Ho.