Seen for the first time at the Toronto Film Festival in 2008, The Brothers Bloom is the story of two con men brothers who seek to live out one final perfect con by tricking a beautiful rich heiress. Bloom, the younger brother (Adrian Brody), is seeking “an unwritten life” and to get away from playing the pawn to his brother Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) the conjurer. Sound like a con? With its overwrought script and ambiguous style it is not quite predictable, but it is a pleasant enough movie and the actors are not nearly as vacuous as the film itself.

One last play, this time on a sheltered but cultured princess, who gets sexually aroused by thunderstorms! Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz) is an attractive and endearing as an eccentric but bored hobby imitator. She becomes an eager beaver to join them in their adventure. Later she finds out they are smugglers and is even more enthusiastic, and then is conned by the Brothers with the help of a Belgian Curator played by the always charming, looming Robbie Coltrane. The moral here is not to be careful who you con, which might have been interesting, but rather, don’t fall in love. And if you do fall in love, stop conning them.

Filmed in Montenegro, Serbia, Romania and Czech Republic the actors don what looks like the stereotype of European art student clothing to better fit in to the theatrical movie’s antique but beautiful backgrounds. Including a ridiculous, but not a bad villain in Maximilian Schell as Diamond Dog, dressed like a pirate with an eye patch. It does not try to be an art film but has a lot of the gimmicky surface look of one, in its own innocent Johnny Deppishness, perhaps the fault of the films Serbian production crew. It doesn’t help that one of the main characters is a mute Japanese side-kick named Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi), who likes to blow things up.

Writer director Rian Johnson (Brick) has written a movie that he thinks should be made into a movie. Stephen says, without irony, “There’s no such thing as an unwritten life. Just a badly written one.” Despite the theatrical wardrobe and overdone script the movie is not overplayed or pretentious, even while mentioning Dostoevsky. It runs rather like the confident sunny coolness of Wes Anderson films or Ocean’s 11 but without anywhere near the zing, twists and chuckles. I found myself, as if it were a Peter Greenaway movie, looking for art where there wasn’t any. Perhaps its just Brody’s sad demeanor that tones the movie down to a less zippy level.

The Brothers Bloom does not stumble though, and despite what I have said, the redeeming of the movie is through the warm pull of the offbeat character of Rachel Weisz and Adrian Brody who are appealing stars. And it is hard not to form a thumbs up when the two of them break down in tears. It is safe to say that the actors, the icing on this sponge cake, carry the movie through a mildly entertaining ride. The movie does have a big heart and even manages to bewitch us with its portrayal of fraternal and romantic love.

The problem is I can’t empathize with the movie’s hokeyness or bratty characters who think they are hard done by. But sail back and forth in a turn of the century type yacht between New Jersey and the Mediterranean; all because, being orphans as kids, they were apparently unable to play in the park and so must live life dressed in black. Bloom finds excitement only in stealing an apple and Penelope in crashing a new Lamborghini everyday falling for the old faked bike altercation. The oldest trick in the book. In a time when movies really are supposed to travel the world it is strange to see a New Jersey that is obviously Montenegro, or St. Petersburg perhaps Romania, and so on. Yes I know, you wouldn’t have a movie otherwise, but I couldn’t suspend disbelief.