Glenn Close, Brendan Fraser and M. Emmet Walsh also star in ‘Palm Springs’ director Max Barbakow’s sophomore feature.

The increasing predominance of streaming content over theatrical releasing continues apace with Brothers, a Legendary Entertainment production that distributor Amazon MGM Studios dropped into a handful of theaters for a week without critics’ screenings, ahead of its Oct. 17 debut on Prime. That strategy will likely turn out to be fortuitous for a mildly amusing feature that lacks the heft to compete at the early awards-season box office, leaving the film to find a less-committed audience in the streaming-verse.

A brief setup introduces career criminal Jady Munger (Dinklage), who manages to lop a substantial chunk off his prison sentence for burglary and assault after cutting a secret deal with crooked Judge Farful (M. Emmet Walsh).

After the initial adjustment to Dinklage and Brolin playing twins, the inclination is to settle in for the familiar twists of an entertaining heist comedy. But those expectations quickly get upended by some ridiculously complicated family drama.

When Jady shows up uninvited at the baby shower for Moke’s pregnant wife Abby (Taylour Paige), Moke’s carefully compartmentalized life threatens to unravel — unless he can placate Jady by agreeing to apply his safecracking skills to acquire the emeralds. As the brothers set out on a roadtrip to pull off the job, with officer Farful in close pursuit, Moke little suspects the world of hurt that Jady has lying in store for him in a misguided attempt at familial bonding.

Jady’s intermittent voiceover narration attempts to stitch together decades of missed opportunities and hard feelings between the brothers, while Dinklage’s hangdog expressions and wheedling tone help weaponize Jady’s campaign of deliberate emotional manipulation.

If their appearances never before suggested a family resemblance, Brothers will now inevitably link Brolin and Dinklage, who find fertile terrain for their less-appreciated comedic talents in the slippery sibling dynamic between the estranged brothers. Close proves to be inspired casting as the underhanded and unrepentant Cath, who shows barely any indication of maternal concern for her sons in a quest to get her hands on the emeralds.

While the premise suggests kooky fraternal comedies like Adam McKay’s Step-Brothers or Ivan Reitman’s Twins, Brothers lacks the quirkiness of the filmmakers’ earlier work. It eschews the winsome humor that Barbakow memorably mined in his Groundhog Day riff Palm Springs or the wackiness of screenwriter Macon Blair’s The Toxic Avenger.

However, the film does deliver flavorful characters and rapid-fire dialogue for the supporting cast as well as the stars, giving Fraser a gleefully gonzo role as the anger-addled Farful and sending Walsh off with a handful of choice lines in one of the veteran character actor‘s final roles. Even Marisa Tomei’s cameo lands effectively as Jady’s prison-correspondence, long-distance love and the owner of pet orangutan Samuel, who develops a perverse affinity for Moke in one of the movie’s all too few laugh-aloud scenes.