ROUNDUP REVIEW: BROTHERS OF THE HEAD

(2 stars)

Facetious form dictates hollow content in "Brothers of the Head," a paradox - an earnest mockumentary - from filmmakers Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe about the rise and fall of a '70s English punk duo with a difference. The difference: Tom and Barry Howe (Harry and Luke Treadaway), sold at age 18 by their father to an old music-hall impresario, are conjoined twins, connected at the chest.

The original novella by Brian Aldiss told the story as a series of interviews with the cadre of handlers and hangers-on surrounding the twins. The screenplay by Tony Grisoni follows a similar pattern. Testimony from the manager, the mother, the sharky celebrity interviewer and the like form a chorus of contradictory voices. "Tommy"-like, the Howes endure physical abuse and the cold scrutiny of fame as their lives, caught on camera even in private moments by a documentarian, run parallel lines to nowhere.

Fulton and Pepe fashioned one documentary ("The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of 12 Monkeys") about Terry Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys" and another, "Lost in La Mancha," about the Gilliam adaptation of "Man of La Mancha" that never made it to fruition. Now they've done a fake documentary about a pretend symbol: outsiders who represent our collective lust to know what's behind the music and underneath every showbiz-varnished "freak." In its ever-shifting film stocks and visual japes, the film is technically accomplished and, in its limited way, clever. It's also dangerously close to pointless. Here, at least, played straight, the mockumentary strictures are more like straitjackets.

- Michael Phillips

MPAA rating: R (language, drug use and sexuality). Running time: 1:30. Opens Friday at Landmark's Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark St. (773-509-4949 or landmarktheatres.com).