This hard hitting yet sensitive film is about a blue collar family living in a working class neighborhood in the Bronx, and the ups and downs that they go through. The De Coco's are an Italian/American family with two sons. Thomas Stony (Richard Gere) is torn between being a construction worker and working as a recreational assistant at a local hospital. In the hospital Stony want's to help young children with severe emotional problems like his younger brother Albert (Michael Hershewe), who is constantly being harassed by his mother Marie (Lelia Goldoni) and father Tommy (Tony Lo Bianco).
Uncle Louis Chubby (Paul Sorvino) is a combative and drunken construction worker, following in the footsteps of his younger brother Tommy. Macho in the extreme, these guys have no time for the sensitive moral quandaries of Stony and Albert. Tommy's womanizing leads his wife to try to have an affair with weirdo Jackie (Raymond Singer), who lives in their apartment building. When Tommy finds out about this supposed affair from a phone call from Jackie's mother, he goes haywire and almost kills Marie and ends up in the hospital with an emotional breakdown.
There is a subplot involving bartender Banion (Kenneth McMillan) who cannot reach out to his gay son. He threw his son Paulie (Bruce French) out of the house when he found out that he was gay. Chubby tells his friend Banion a moving story about his own son who tragically died in infancy. Almost in tears Chubby explains how he loved and looked after his nephew Stony as the son he lost. Chubby tries to get both father and son back together later by going to Buccellati Jewelry on Fifth Avenue where Paulie works to get him to attend his father's birthday party. Paulie not only refuses to show up at the party but doesn't even want to sign a birthday card for his father that Chubby gives him. Stony decides to leave home with his younger brother Albert for good. In an attempt to say goodbye, he has an emotionally packed confrontation with his father and uncle, one of the best of many great scenes in the movie.
This overblown soap opera races from childhood anorexia to adolescent sexual trauma via wife-battering. Stony, as the school drop out who wants to be a social worker but comes up against his father, is fine, but his performance is mangled by the movie's glorification of the macho ethos. The pacing is less than ideal and the film is halfway through before it becomes clear where the story is going. Broader social and personal issues in the film are never satisfactorily developed. As an acting showcase it is good, but overall it's not so good. "Bloodbrothers" is a moving and tragic film with a great and stirring musical score that shows that there is nothing uninteresting about working people. Elmer Bernstein composed the original music. Walter Newman wrote the screenplay from Richard Price's novel, but made too many changes to its source. Robert Mulligan directed, and also recut the 116 minute film to a 98 minute version.
