Where Does Bobby Mercer Walk From To Fight Victor Sweet At The End Of 'Four Brothers'?

Trent4/30/2018 2:30 PM

This question has been on my mind since 2005. That’s when Four Brothers came out. The question hasn’t been on the front lines of my brain the past few years but it’s definitely been swimming around in there somewhere. But then it jumped to the forefront a couple weeks ago when Four Brothers was on TV and it was at the exact scene where Bobby Mercer walks from seemingly-nowhere to fight Victor Sweet. Where the hell did he come from? I had to write a blog about it cause there’s gotta be people out there wondering the same thing.

Before we investigate the question, you need to know that Four Brothers is one of my favorite movies. I’ve seen it no less than 200 times. It has everything. Laughs, car chases, shootouts, Marvin Gaye tunes, a Midwest winter and Tyrease playing hockey. If you haven’t seen Four Brothers, don’t. You’re not allowed. I’m banning you from seeing it. It’s too late and Four Brothers is too good of a movie to have bandwagon jumpers 13 years later. Sorry. It’s a great movie though. An underrated classic.

How do I know it’s a great movie? Cause this is its critics score on Rotten Tomatoes

52%?! Get the all the way the fuck outta here with that score. Never trust the critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. They have no idea what they’re talking about. Critics are high-horse-riding assholes who wouldn’t know a good movie if it punched them in the face. The audience score is always much more reliable. That’s because they’re normal people. Normal people go to a movie and wonder afterwards, “Did I enjoy myself?” and the answer is usually yes. A movie has to be really terrible for people to actually hate it. My theory is that every movie is mostly fine and it’s only assholes (or critics, same thing) who shit on movies. Every movie is mostly fine. Chill out.

Here’s the audience score for Four Brothers

Much better. It stands to reason that 392,215 normal people are much smarter than 134 holier-than-thou critics. Still not nearly as high as it should be but much better. Anyway. Back to the original question: where does Bobby Mercer walk from at the end of the movie to fist fight the exquisitely-dressed* Victor Sweet?

*and I mean EXQUISITE

Here’s the scene to refresh your memory

Dude comes from outta NOWHERE. The most nowhere there’s ever been.

I mean look at this shit

No car or SUV in sight. Not even a snowmobile or snow shoes. He just saunters up and everyone acts like it’s completely normal. Not one person questions it. That’s bizarre, right? You’d at least think Victor Sweet would be like, “Yo where the fuck did you come from?” And it never gets explained! Bobby Mercer had to walk no less than 50 miles on a frozen river and we never get an explanation. He could’ve walked from Canada for all we know. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a badass moment. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Bobby isn’t winded in the slightest when he gets there either. If I’m Victor Sweet, I refuse to fight him cause clearly my opponent is a mythical creature who has endless endurance. Bobby is so not tired when he arrives that he then goes on to (spoiler alert even though you just watched the scene) beat the fuck outta Victor Sweet in front of his friends. Body in the hole. Game over.

So where does Bobby come from? And how does he know where the meeting is taking place? That’s another brain teaser. The last time we see Bobby is when Jeremiah (Andre 3000) heads off to the meeting. They have no idea where it’s gonna be. My best guess is Bobby just started wandering around Detroit until he stumbled upon a large pow wow of gangsters standing next to a hole in the river. I don’t have a better explanation because there isn’t a better explanation. The entire scenario is inexplicable and I love it.

One last thing. The fun part about Four Brothers is that a guy traveling on foot to a fight from potentially a different state isn’t even the most farfetched part. That title is held by the high school basketball scene

Let’s rank the five craziest things in that scene from Least Crazy to Most Crazy:

5. Bobby Mercer interrupts a high school basketball game and steals the basketball from a ref

4. Bobby Mercer doesn’t go between his legs while dribbling the basketball and yelling, “I GOT THE ROCK NOW!”

3. Bobby Mercer breaks the nose of a high school student using said basketball

2. Bobby Mercer pulls out a gun in a high school gymnasium and waves it around (incredibly reckless and very illegal)

1. The logo at the middle of the court is green but neither basketball team has green anywhere on their jerseys

The jerseys don’t even have logos on them

But the red team splurged and put names on the back?

None of that adds up. It’s one of the most unrealistic scenes ever. They never get in trouble for it either. Lieutenant Green (Terrence Howard) is never like, “I’m sorry about your mother. It’s a horrible thing that happened. But you guys can’t go running around pulling out pistols in high school gyms and assaulting students. You just can’t.” The absurdity of it all is one of the many reasons why I love the movie so much.