First released in 1977 and based on the real-life story of prison activist George Jackson, Brothers opens with David Thomas (Bernie Casey) being charged with robbing a gas station.

Thomas explains that, while he was in the car with the people who robbed the station, he personally had nothing to do with the robbery and did not know that it was going to happen.  Thomas’s attorney tells Thomas that the smart thing to do would just be to plead guilty.  That way, Thomas will probably just spend a few months in jail as an accessory and then he’ll be a free man.  Instead, the judge sentences Thomas to a sentence of one year to life in prison.  Essentially, Thomas will be in prison until the State decides to let him out.

Thomas serves his sentence at Mendocino Prison, where he has to deal with threats from both the white prisoners and the guards.  Thomas’s cellmate is Walter Nance (Ron O’Neal), a political activist who tells David that he’s “letting your time do you.”  Nance educates David, teaching him about both chess and radical politics.  Soon, David is publishing an underground newsletter that is discreetly passed around amongst the black prisoners.

Meanwhile, on the outside, David’s younger brother, Josh (Owen Pace), is trying to free David from prison.  Josh approaches a radical professor named Paula Jones (Vonetta McGee) and asks for her help in publicizing David’s case.  Paula is at first skeptical but, after she reads David’s writings, she starts to correspond with him.  Soon, David and Paula have fallen in love.  However, when Walter is murdered by the racist guards and David starts to organize within the prison, both David and Paula find themselves being targeted by the government.

As I said at the start of this review, Brothers is based on a true story.  David Thomas is based on George Jackson, who was sentenced to a year to life for robbery and who, while serving time in Soledad Penitentiary, wrote two books that made him a cause celebre amongst political radicals in the early 70s.  Paula Jones is based on Angela Davis, who was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list after a gun registered in her name was used by Jackson’s younger brother during a shoot-out at a courthouse.  (The shoot-out, which is depicted in the film, led to the murder of Judge Harold Haley and the deaths of Jonathan Jackson and two prisoners.)  George Jackson was later shot and killed while attempting to escape San Quentin.  In the film, the fate of David Thomas is just as violent but slightly more poetic.

There’s still a considerable amount of controversy as to whether or not George Jackson was a hardened criminal or an innocent man who was targeted for his activism.  Brothers is firmly on the side of George Jackson and Angela Davis, portraying them both as activists who are fighting back against an unjust system that is determined to hold them down and destroy them if necessary.  Bernie Casey and Vonetta McGree both give good performances as David Thomas and Paula Jones.  Casey, in particular, smolders with an intensity that makes him instantly believable as someone who could organize a rebellion.  Unfortunately, the film itself moves a bit too slowly for its own good and it ends on a false note, suggesting that David’s sacrifice has managed to unify both the white and the black prisoners against the guards.  Considering that, up until that point, the film had been honest about racism in prison, the ending feels like an attempt to provide some hope to an otherwise downbeat story.  Unfortunately, the hope doesn’t feel earned.  Still, Brothers is an interesting historical document, one that deals with issues that are still being fought over to this day.