The Keanu Reeves Project: Brotherhood of Justice

BROTHERHOOD OF JUSTICE (TV Movie, 1986) - Derek

It's 1986 and the crime rate in the United States is through the roof.  High school kids are smoking weed and angel dust at an alarming rate (side note - when did we stop calling PCP "angel dust?"  It just sounds so much cooler.  Maybe that was the problem).  

Brotherhood of Justice was a 1986 TV movie based on a true story about a group of about a dozen affluent high school kids in Fort Worth, Texas, who after seeing a flurrly of drug abuse and vandalism in their school, decided to take things into their own hands.  They called themselves the Legion of Doom, but in reality sounded like a bunch of pathetic, entitled, white kids.  Their 'protection' apparently spiraled out control as they began committing more and more criminal acts that eventually led to their arrests.  There was even a Rolling Stone article about them.

In the movie, Brotherhood of Justice, Keanu Reeves plays Derek, the leader of the newly formed Brotherhood of Justice.  I guess they couldn't use Legion of Doom for legal reasons, and they also moved the setting from Fort Worth to Santa Lucia, California.  

This town is only big enough for one Legion of Doom

As far as TV movies go, Brotherhood of Justice isn't the worst I've ever seen.  Aside from Keanu Reeves, the movie also stars Kiefer Sutherland, Billy Zane, and noted fraudster and future felon, Lori Loughlin.  By the way, why didn't Aunt Becky just do what all rich people do and give a large "donation" to USC so her stupid fucking daughter could get in?  Like come on Aunt Becky.

The movie starts off with the principal of Santa Lucia high school trying to find a way to deal with the crime problems at the school, and holds an assembly where he gives a speech that a bunch of the students interpret as him asking them to commit vigilante justice.  So Keanu and his crew form the Brotherhood of Justice, initially targeting drug dealers and other troublemakers at the school.  It starts with trashing a party that one of them is having at his house but eventually leads to a stabbing and the attempted pipe bombing of Kiefer Sutherland's car.  Lori Loughlin plays Keanu's girlfriend and she works as both a gas station attendant as well as a waitress at the local pizza place.  If only she'd put this much effort into her daughter's education instead of rampant fraud maybe she wouldn't be going to prison (just kidding, she's rich, she's not going to prison).  

Not yet Aunt Becky or inmate #259870

Billy Zane is one of Keanu's buddies in the Brotherhood of Justice and Kiefer Sutherland is Keanu's rival of sorts, as he's sort of an outcast who eventually becomes a target of the Brotherhood when he starts making eyes at Lori Loughlin (he's unaware of her real life criminal future).

Put a cork in it, Zane!

There are a handful of weird similarities to Point Break as well, a movie I can't wait to get to for this project.  Keanu is a football player who finds himself mixed up with the wrong people and there's even an Ex-President's sighting when they trash a party.

Richard Nixon, not yet robbing banks

Eventually, the Brotherhood's antics get to be even too much for Keanu and he decides to call it quits, saving Kiefer Sutherland's car and possibly his life in the process when he finds out that BIlly Zane has rigged his car with a pipe bomb towards the end of the movie.  Keanu goes to the police and turns himself in along with the rest of the gang.

Two future megastars and one future felon

Throw in a little big of drug abuse, racism towards the Mexican kids at the school, underage drinking and you've got yourself a not too terrible 80's TV movie.

BEST PART: Kiefer Sutherland's sweet, sweet car.  

WORST PART: Not using the "gang's" original moniker, the Legion of Doom.

Box Office Mojo information:  N/A, this was made for TV.  

Rotten Tomatoes: 38% audience rating.

IMDB: 5.5

My Movie Rating: 4/10.  As far as TV movies go, it's not terrible, but we don't really learn what happened to the Brotherhood of Justice after the arrests.  Did they make it to college?  Did they become FBI agents?  We may never know.  

Keanu Rating: 6/10.  He's really not bad in this as he wrestles with the peer pressure to keep leading the Brotherhood versus quitting the gang.  He's still a long way from John Wick though.  

Up next - what I think was an actual, real, motion picture released in the United States, River's Edge.