Eli (John C. Reilly) and Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix) are brothers who perform various violent jobs for the "Commodore." In this case, they're given the job to kill a chemist (Riz Ahmed), but not until after they torture a particular formula out of him. At least they don't have to do the actual finding, as that's the job of a scout named Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal). Except that Morris decides he likes the notions Hermann believes in and switches sides.
So on the one side, you have Morris and Hermann, where the two men become friends, and Morris turns back to certain ideals he rejected in his youth. Hermann believes his formula will make finding gold much easier, and with that money, help others like him to establish a true, civilized society. In Dallas, Texas. Well, he's definitely an idealist, and Morris decides he likes the sound of that over helping the Commodore become a wealthier man. Ahmed plays Hermann as a quiet, genuinely earnest man. He can't conceal his emotions, be it excitement, indignation or fear, and maybe Morris, who pretends to simply be a guy on his way to a place, envies that.
On the other, you have Eli and Charlie, where Eli is becoming increasingly disenchanted with the work, and dreaming of a more respectable life. Running a store, marrying a schoolteacher who gifted him a shawl which he takes out and smells before going to sleep. Charlie's not blind to the shift in his brother, but doesn't share his interests. For him, "respectable" is that people know (and more critically, fear) the Sisters brothers.
There's also the aspect that their father was a troubled man, and Charlie believes the same trouble is in them. Which could be real, or could just be an excuse for Charlie's tendency to get fall-down drunk and start killing people. Either way, it's a reason to not ever think about leaving the life of violence. But he's Eli's little brother, and so Eli feels bound to try and watch his back, care for him.
Reilly and Phoenix play siblings well. There's a lot of squabbling and picking at sore spots - Charlie taunts Eli about the schoolteacher's "scarf", Eli gives Charlie grief about using big words instead of just speaking straightforward. When Eli's angry Charlie slapped him in public, Charlie offers him a free shot in return. So Eli punches him in the face, which Charlie objects afterwards wasn't equal.
And yet, when there's trouble, they have each other's backs. Charlie will pull himself from a drunken stupor where he can barely stand to help Eli drive off a half-dozen armed men out to kill them. Eli will go to comfort his brother when he hears him crying in the night (even if it turns out to be a prank.) It's a complicated mess where the two of them may not have much of anything in common besides their blood, but that's enough.
Director Jacques Audiard is fond of shots that are meant to be from the perspective of a character, usually Eli. They're shot a bit like looking through a peephole or a cardboard tube. Just a circle of vision, which slowly comes into focus, surrounded by black. In one case, where Eli awakens from a fever dream, the view is a diagonal slat that slowly widens as he wakes up. I thought at first they were almost marking chapters, that the story had reached a new point, but I'm not sure of that.
The dialogue reminds me a bit of True Grit, in that characters often speak in stilted or awkward ways. It's not nearly as obvious as True Grit, and the characters themselves will sometimes remark on it - Charlie complains about Morris leaving a note that says Hermann left in a "precipitate manner" - but it's still noticeable even without that.
With Hermann, I think it's a matter of education, and that his profession and long-held ideals mean he sees things differently. With Morris and especially Charlie, I think it's a matter of them each trying to be something they aren't. Or maybe for Morris, it's part of his upbringing he hasn't managed to bury. But Charlie has designs on being like the Commodore, so he's definitely aping that man. And the Commodore has an end that's rather fitting, and emphasizes the hollowness of the life Charlie pursued.
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