There was something genuinely likable about the Barbarian Brothers.
David and Peter Paul weren't particularly accomplished actors. They weren't going to win any awards for their dramatic abilities. They were two enormous, musclebound twins with outrageous personalities, questionable acting skills, and an almost supernatural willingness to make fools of themselves. And somehow, they were charming as hell.
Even when their movies weren't particularly good, the brothers were difficult to dislike. They had an infectious enthusiasm and natural chemistry that frequently made them the most entertaining part of whatever nonsense was happening around them. You wanted to see these guys succeed.
Which makes their careers all the more frustrating to look back on.
The Barbarian Brothers should have been bigger stars. Not Schwarzenegger or Stallone big, necessarily, but they could have carved out their own corner of the action genre. They had the physical presence, the personalities, and something many of their musclebound contemporaries lacked: they were naturally funny.
They just never found a filmmaker who knew how to use them.
Too Big to Ignore
The brothers emerged from the bodybuilding world during the 1980s, when Hollywood was searching for the next great action star. Schwarzenegger had proven that enormous muscles and a distinctive personality could sell tickets, and the video market was filling up with would-be successors.
But the Barbarian Brothers were different. They weren't particularly interested in standing around looking intimidating. They were loud, animated, frequently ridiculous, and seemingly incapable of taking themselves seriously.
Their greatest asset wasn't their physiques. It was their chemistry.
Their first major starring vehicle, Cannon Films' The Barbarians (1987), seemed like a perfect opportunity. Two giant brothers swinging swords through a fantasy world full of monsters and villains? How could that possibly go wrong?
Directed by Ruggero Deodato, the film is an entertainingly bizarre piece of sword-and-sorcery nonsense. The brothers are clearly enjoying themselves, and their personalities give the movie much of its charm.
But it also established a frustrating pattern. The film seemed more interested in how ridiculous the brothers were than in how impressive they could be.
Rather than building an exciting adventure around two unusual heroes, the movie leaned heavily into their exaggerated personalities. The brothers were the joke, when they should have been the stars.
The Action Heroes They Never Became
Consider Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Nobody was confusing Van Damme with a classically trained dramatic actor when Bloodsport arrived in 1988. But his filmmakers understood his appeal. Audiences wanted to watch him fight. They wanted spectacular kicks, impossible splits, and exciting action sequences. Everything else was secondary.
The Barbarian Brothers could have followed a similar formula, with one significant difference.
They were funny.
Imagine a Van Damme movie starring two enormous brothers who constantly argued, traded insults, and approached every dangerous situation with ridiculous confidence. The villains would be genuinely threatening, the fights exciting, and the stakes real. But the brothers' personalities would provide the comedy naturally.
They didn't need to behave like idiots. They didn't need ridiculous costumes or endless slapstick routines.
They could be silly without the action being silly.
That's the distinction their movies rarely seemed to understand.
A Series of Missed Opportunities
Think Big (1990) moved the brothers into contemporary comedy, casting them as truck drivers caught up in a road adventure. It's a likable enough curiosity, but once again their personalities were expected to compensate for material that offered little opportunity to demonstrate their physical abilities.
Double Trouble (1992) came closer to getting the formula right. Playing estranged twins on opposite sides of the law, the brothers finally had something resembling a legitimate action-comedy vehicle.
The premise was promising. Their contrasting personalities created natural opportunities for humor, while the criminal storyline provided an excuse for action.
Unfortunately, the execution never quite delivered. The comedy remained excessively broad, and the action rarely matched the promise of its imposing stars.
Still, you could see the possibilities.
By Twin Sitters (1994), however, the brothers had been reduced to protecting a pair of mischievous children. The movie has its moments, but the sight of two giant bodybuilders being outsmarted by kids felt like the inevitable destination of a career built around their novelty.
Schwarzenegger had already demonstrated that an action star could successfully transition into family comedy with Kindergarten Cop.
The difference was that Schwarzenegger had established himself as an action hero first.
The Barbarian Brothers never got that chance.
The Director They Never Found
I can't help wondering what someone like Sam Raimi or Joe Dante might have done with these guys.
Raimi understood the relationship between physical comedy and exciting action. Dante had a gift for finding genuine personality beneath outrageous concepts. Either might have recognized that the brothers' natural charm was something to build upon rather than exploit.
They didn't need bigger budgets or more elaborate gimmicks. They needed a director with a clear vision and a script that treated them as legitimate heroes.
Give them dangerous villains, impressive fights, and a story worth following. Let their brotherly banter and exaggerated personalities supply the laughs.
Their movies kept asking audiences to find two enormous twins inherently amusing. What they needed was a movie that would have been entertaining without them, but became something special because they were in it.
What Could Have Been
David Paul passed away in 2020, leaving behind a filmography that never quite fulfilled the promise he and his brother displayed.
I don't want to pretend their movies were misunderstood masterpieces. They weren't. Some were entertaining, others were pretty terrible, and most are remembered as oddities from an era when video stores were overflowing with strange cinematic experiments.
But the brothers themselves deserved better.
They had something that couldn't be manufactured: natural charisma, genuine chemistry, and an obvious enthusiasm for entertaining an audience. They weren't polished performers, but they were interesting ones.
They never got their Bloodsport. They never got their Commando. They never found that one director who could balance their ridiculous personalities with the kind of action their physiques demanded.
Instead, they became cult curiosities, remembered more for their outrageous appearance than their unrealized potential.
And yet, decades later, people still remember the Barbarian Brothers. Not because their movies were great, but because David and Peter Paul were genuinely memorable.
There was nobody else quite like them.
With the right script and the right director, I believe they could have been something special.
The Barbarian Brothers deserved better. And so did we.
