A Family Thing

Shortly after Earl Pilcher (Robert Duvall) meets his half-brother Ray Murdock (James Earl Jones) in "A Family Thing," they have this pithy exchange:

"How's it feel, Mr. Pilcher?"

"How's what feel?"

"Being colored."

OK, the story is contrived. Even a bit hokey. And the ending is too pat. But on a connecting-with-the-audience level, "A Family Thing" really hits the mark.

That's due largely to the acting chops of Duvall and Jones, and it's pure pleasure to watch them exercising their emoting muscles.

"A Family Thing" (which Duvall co-produced) casts them as half-brothers, an unlikely match at best. But under the sure hand of director Richard Pearce ("Country," "The Long Walk Home"), the film's story evolves in such a natural, matter-of-fact way that it's not all that hard to accept in context.

The story begins in rural Arkansas, as redneck storekeeper Earl is called home because his mother is dying. After the funeral, Earl finds that his mother has left him a most unexpected, cryptic letter, written some time earlier. It explains that Earl is not her natural son, that he is the product of a forced union between his father and a young black woman some 60 years earlier.

But because he was born white, and because his biological mother died in childbirth, Earl's "parents" took him in and raised him as their own.

Naturally, this leaves Earl rather devastated — especially since he must confront his father with the evidence. But the real stunner comes when Earl reads that his mother's last wish is that he look up his half-brother (Jones), a policeman in Chicago.

At first, Earl resists. But then he finds himself heading to Chicago in an almost dreamlike state, not knowing what he'll find or how he'll react — or how his newfound half-brother will feel about all this. But he is compelled to fulfill his mother's deathbed wish.

Naturally, Duvall and Jones clash, and it becomes the task of Aunt T. (Irma P. Hall), their mother's sister, to bring them together.

As the action moves to Chicago, the film begins to meander a bit too much, and screenwriters Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson ("One False Move") could have added some dimension to the simplistic proceedings.

But it's impossible to over-sell the pleasure of watching Duvall and Jones delivering subtle, shaded performances.

They also get excellent support from Michael Beach, as Jones' troubled adult son, and especially Irma P. Hall as blind Aunt T.

Hall is a genuine scene-stealer, and she's terrific as the wise, older woman who sees things more clearly than those around her. Her character is actually a theatrical conceit, but Hall makes her the most compelling person in the film — no small feat in the company of Duvall and Jones.

"A Family Thing" is rated PG-13, for violence, profanity, racial epithets and brief partial nudity.