Mark Wahlberg gets in touch with his inner punk in "Four Brothers," and he hasn't been this perfectly matched to a role in years.

	George Kraychyk When their adoptive mother is murdered, the notorious Mercer brothers reunite to track down her killer in "Four Brothers." Click photo for larger image. "Four Brothers" Rating: R for strong violence, pervasive language and some sexual content. Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Andre Benjamin, Tyrese Gibson, Garrett Hedlund. Director: John Singleton. "Four Brothers" Web site

He leads the cast of John Singleton's modern-day Western, set in a Detroit that seems a day's ride from the nearest lawman. That explains how a prolonged shootout can happen in daylight in a middle-class neighborhood without any immediate sign of the cops. Was 911 out of service that day?

"Four Brothers" opens with a hold-up at a corner grocery and fatal shootings of the clerk and a female customer, who simply seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The woman is Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan), the adoptive mother of four men, two white and two black. She placed foster children for a living but came across four "lost causes" she never could find homes for, so she adopted them.

One, Jeremiah (Andre Benjamin), stayed in Detroit, became a union activist and then aspiring businessman, married and had two daughters. The others -- a hothead and former hockey player named Bobby (Wahlberg), a rocker named Jack (Garrett Hedlund) and a former soldier called Angel (Tyrese Gibson) -- scattered. But they're back to avenge their mother's death.

When they start nosing around and realize maybe her murder wasn't a random act of violence, they take the law into their own hands. That puts them in the sights of the notorious gangster Victor Sweet (Chiwetel Ejiofor), whose heart isn't just black but in need of carbon-dating.

Like the sons of Katie Elder, the sons of Evelyn Mercer engage in a search for frontier justice, with "Four Brothers" building toward a modern, wintry variation of a high noon showdown. This is one cold comeuppance, but as an old friend and cop named Lt. Green (Terrence Howard) suggests, "You keep knockin' on the devil's door long enough, sooner or later, someone's going to answer you."

In fact, the violence in "Four Brothers" is swift and shocking, whether someone is bleeding to death on a snowy lawn or being shot in the chest in a parking lot.

The women are reduced to sexy, hot-tempered girlfriend (Sofia Vergara) or sweet wife (Taraji P. Henson) who sounds like she's addressing Ben Cartwright: "Don't you let him get hurt. You bring him back to me."

The story, by David Elliot and Paul Lovett, has more loose ends than a frayed pair of cut-offs, but it is propelled by actors who manage to pull off the casting stunt of the year. They act like brothers, down to the teases and taunts, although there are too many about Jack's sexuality.

Wahlberg is on solid footing, Gibson and Benjamin make you forget their musical backgrounds and Hedlund inspired swoons at a preview when he was shown emerging from the shower and reaching for a towel. Ejiofor proves worthy of The Next Big Thing appellation from Singleton as he radiates power and malevolence.

"Four Brothers" suffers from many problems, but it does what it set out to do: reinvent the Western, with a family of black and white brothers, a wintry setting that makes for a harrowing car chase, a Motown soundtrack and a fresh eye.