Bullet Points: The Brotherhood of Justice

Have you ever seen the Keanu Reeves movie where he plays a quarterback and there is a guy running around wearing a Richard Nixon mask?

Of course you have. You are an action movie fan. And action movie fans love 1991’s Point Break.

But have you seen the OTHER Keanu Reeves movie where he plays a quarterback and there is a guy running around wearing a Richard Nixon mask?

What’s that? You didn’t know such a movie existed?! Well I am here to tell you that it does exist and the name of the movie is The Brotherhood of Justice.

• The Premise: In the 1986 made for television movie The Brotherhood of Justice, Keanu Reeves plays Derek. He’s a big man on campus at Santa Lucia High School. Derek drives around in a sweet sports car (from his daddy’s car dealership), he is the captain of the football team and he is going steady with the hottest girl in school. After Santa Lucia is vandalized and car radios are being stolen out of cars, the principal of Santa Lucia gives an impassioned speech to the upperclassmen, a speech some in the class interpret as a call to arms… and by some I mean Derek and his friends Les, Scottie, Barnwell, Collin and Mule. The group of friends dub themselves the Brotherhood of Justice (DING!) and begin to target miscreants at their school. The Brotherhood becomes the talk of the school. And at first they really make a positive impact on things.

• All Good Things: The Brotherhood of Justice made a splash, both literally and figuratively when they select Jerry as their first target. Jerry is a known “dust dealer” at their school and Derek and the boys crash his backyard party. They throw some firecrackers around and push some people in Jerry’s pool, effectively sending a message that the Brotherhood of Justice is going to clean things up at Santa Lucia High School (Side note: At one point they mention the rival school of Santa Lucia is Val Verde High School). This is also where in the heat of the moment as they are making their exit that Les (Billy Zane) organically refers to the group as The Brotherhood of Justice. It is obvious from the planning stages of The Brotherhood that Les is into it a little more than the other guys. So it is no shock as the movie progresses that Les is pushing the group to get more and more extreme with the punishments not really fitting the crimes. The Brotherhood of Justice go from roughing up drug dealers and chop shoppers to hospitalizing one of their fellow football teammates because he copied off of one of them on a test.  Les would bring weapons into the mix when he stabs a guy, then he takes a gun along when the group, working on very little evidence, go to a Mexican neighborhood looking for a guy who may or may not have stolen Collin’s motorcycle. Total racial profiling. Tensions are now forming in the group, Derek feels they are straying from their original goal and tries to restore order. Instead of seeing things Derek’s way, the other members of the Brotherhood decide to do Derek a solid.

• Bang You’re Dead: One of the story elements that plays through out the movie is the love triangle between Derek, his girlfriend Christie (played by Lori Loughlin) and a guy named Victor (played by Kiefer Sutherland). Christie and Victor are co-workers at a pizza place and Derek doesn’t like that Christie talks to Victor. As Derek spends more and more time with the Brotherhood and less time with Christie, Christie starts talking to Victor more and more. Victor even gives her a ride home one night after work, after Derek forgets to pick her up. So Derek’s friends do what no friends should ever do for another friend, they rig up a bomb to Victor’s car! C’mon guys! You are all seniors. Derek is set to go off to Harvard in the fall, the chances that he and Christie would remain an item were slim and none anyway. Is death and destruction really required here?

If I didn’t know this were a made for TV movie prior to watching it, I would have quickly realized it just by the look of the movie, the spots where commercials would have been and Lori Loughlin. The violence and action in The Brotherhood of Justice is about what I’d expect from something that aired on television in 1986. It was not ultra-violent and the action was not over the top but considering the movie is about a group of high school kids turned vigilantes, it is realistic that they weren’t operating with the skills or the tools of SEAL Team Six.

I’d definitely recommend this movie for all Keanu Reeves fans. It was interesting to see Reeves basically dipping his toe in the action waters for the first time. Especially considering how the action genre would go on to provide Reeves with some of the biggest movies of his career including Speed, Point Break and The Matrix.  Some solid work from Kiefer Sutherland and Billy Zane (the perfect choice for the brooding bad boy of the group) also make The Brotherhood of Justice worth watching.

Reeves, Sutherland and Zane weren’t the only familiar faces in The Brotherhood of Justice, let me tell you about some more via bonus Bullet Points…

• I Am Groot: The principal of Santa Lucia is Principal Bob Grootemat. His nickname among the students is Groot. Groot was played by Joe Spano, a man who has made a career of playing law enforcement characters on shows like Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue and more recently NCIS.
• Dangerously Close: Don Michael Paul (Rolling Vengeance) plays Collin one of the members of The Brotherhood. Interestingly enough, Don Michael Paul would play Ripper in Albert Pyun’s Dangerously Close, another movie about a group of high school vigilantes that came out in 1986.
• Man of Action: The sheriff in The Brotherhood of Justice looked familiar to me and for good reason. The actor who portrayed him is a man by the name of Jim Haynie. Haynie played Morty Morton Medical Examiner in one of my all-time favorites, Action Jackson, and he also had a role in Dark Angel.