Career military man Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire, left), returns to his wife, Grace (Natalie Portman), after being missing and presumed dead while a war prisoner in Afghanistan in the drama Brothers. (Alliance Films)

Brothers, a remake of Susanne Bier's exceptional 2004 Danish film Brødre, arrives in theatres with Oscar buzz firmly in tow. Heck, David Letterman even put in a shameless plug for the war drama on a recent episode of his show, pronouncing it "the finest movie made in the last 12, 20 years. "

Brothers is a little too polished for its own good — after the U2 ballads and crying scenes have faded from memory, what remains feels remarkably flat and squeaky-clean.

Dave's no dummy, and he's not wrong to fall for this movie. With its war-is-hell theme, A-list cast and superb cinematography from Frederick Elmes, Brothers is a serious piece of work, undoubtedly made with the noblest of intentions. But Brothers is also a little too polished for its own good — after the U2 ballads and crying scenes have faded from memory, what remains feels remarkably flat and squeaky-clean.

Jim Sheridan's remake begins as Brødre did, with the main character, Capt. Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire), preparing to say goodbye to his doting wife Grace (Natalie Portman) and two young daughters before shipping out for another tour in Afghanistan. Sam's ne'er-do-well brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), is sprung from prison just in time for a farewell dinner, where the siblings are thrown right back into their familiar Cain and Abel roles. As their drunken, retired-marine dad (Sam Shepard) berates Tommy, the brothers exchange sheepish looks across the table that suggest this dysfunctional routine's been going on for years.

All that changes when Sam's chopper crashes within days of his departure. He's presumed dead, and something about Grace's crippling grief makes Tommy step in to lend a hand. Stopping by to play with his nieces or build Grace some new kitchen cabinets has a positive effect on the scruffy deadbeat, and some of Brothers' finest scenes involve the way Tommy quietly flourishes once he no longer has to compete with the all-too-perfect Sam. As in the original, there's also a hint that a lot of the black sheep's blossoming is due to Grace's increasingly affectionate gaze.

Any simmering glances exchanged by the two are cut short when they receive news that Sam is coming home. Walking down the airport tarmac, Sam is a hero once more, but his haunted eyes and sinewy face suggest this time, he isn't going to be bragging to Daddy about what he saw "over there." It's a loaded scene, and Elmes's camerawork is exceptionally smart here, particularly in the way Tommy disappears from the frame the second the family members clamour to greet his brother.

Tommy Cahill (Jake Gyllenhaal, left) and Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) become embattled siblings in Brothers. (Alliance Films)

In Brødre, this scene was the turning point where Bier started ratcheting up the tension she sustained until the conclusion of her film, but the remake starts to flounder a bit once Sam's back on American soil. This is all the more curious considering that director Jim Sheridan is almost slavishly faithful to his source, replicating entire scenes, set-ups and passages of dialogue from Bier's movie.

The cast is every bit as determined to do right by the material. Tobey Maguire works up to his climactic moments in small increments, using his wiry frame to suggest someone whose reflexes are now a little too quick, and allowing his dark, hooded eyes to become more glassy with each passing scene. He's already receiving accolades for the role, but Gyllenhaal deserves equal kudos for his far less showy work as Tommy. He's so warm and loose in the role, it might look like Gyllenhaal's not acting at all, but that's part of the trick of his gracious, understated performance. Only Portman, a little too young for her womanly role, seems adrift, and it doesn't help that she's saddled with the movie's sudsiest lines.

In past films like In America (2002), Sheridan has displayed a knack for working with child actors, and true to form, he coaxes a great turn from youngster Bailee Madison. As Isabelle, the older and more sullen of Grace's two daughters, Madison injects a much-needed element of danger into a dinner party scene near the film's end. Dragging her fingertips across a balloon until it makes deliberately nerve-fraying squeaks, the pouty kid creates the atmosphere of dread that permeated Brødre from start to finish. By refusing to make nice, the child points to the elephant in the room: Sam's tour of duty might be over, but that doesn't mean bombs won't detonate before the night is through.

Madison's wonderfully bratty scene reveals the one thing that's missing from this new, American Brothers – mess. The film's screenwriter, David Benioff, follows Bier's plotting to the letter, but he's also sanded off the rougher edges from the source material's characters, who were often capable of feeling several conflicting things at once. Brødre was about emotional horror, the kind that occurs when a good brother takes a little too much pleasure in lecturing the bad; when a furtive late-night kiss can't be explained away by grief; and when a broken soldier comes home and lashes out at his family.

Brothers is far too tidy to address such uncomfortable ambiguities. While the Danish movie concluded with a speech about the absence of good and bad, Sheridan never grasps that notion. In the end, everything in Brothers – from the pretty Hollywood actors to the delicate snowflakes that blanket the wounded characters – is trying so very hard to be good that it makes for a strangely unmoving viewing experience. It's all about heroes and nobility, when Bier knew the real story was always about flawed, ruddy-faced humans making regrettable choices and trying to wade through so much muck.

Brothers opens Dec. 4.

Lee Ferguson writes about the arts for CBC News.