Paper Tiger Review: Adam Driver Is Terrific in a Crime Drama that Grips but Never Quite Soars
James Gray’s sixth Cannes competition film stars Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller in a 3-star crime drama about a family’s risky business deal.
- On Sunday, May 17, 2026, writer-director James Gray premiered Paper Tiger, his sixth Competition film at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, featuring A-list stars Adam Driver and Miles Teller.
- Gary, a former NYPD officer with connections on the force, convinces his brother Irwin to partner with a Russian firm cleaning Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal, promising quick profits despite the contacts appearing untrustworthy.
- While critics praise Adam Driver's magnetic performance as the charismatic Gary, the film suffers from tonal inconsistencies and an underserved storyline for Scarlett Johansson, who plays Hester, Irwin's wife.
- A naive blunder by Irwin puts his family directly in the crosshairs of his new business partners, with a creepy home invasion sequence and action scene evoking the "tiger" building maximum tension.
- James Gray returns to his cinematic roots, blending Jewish family life in New York with Russian mob violence, echoing his 1994 debut Little Odessa and offering enough for his devoted fans to celebrate.
21 Articles
21 Articles
American filmmaker James Gray finds Cannes and his competition with "Paper Tiger", a brilliant genre film reminiscent of his first creations. With Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett JohanssonAfter a personal film based on his childhood memories (Armageddon Time, 2022), James Gray returns to the genre cinema that had succeeded him so well with his first three films, Little Odessa (1994), The Yards (2000) and La Nuit belongs to us (2007). Acco…
Review | Paper Tiger: Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson lead dark gangster movie
3.5/5 stars Back in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival for the sixth time, writer-director James Gray returns to his roots with Paper Tiger. The American filmmaker started his career with 1994’s Little Odessa, starring Tim Roth as a Russian-Jewish hitman operating in the Brighton Beach area of New York. His next two films, The Yards (2000) and We Own the Night (2007), kept him ensconced in the world of low-life criminals. Paper Tig…
The American director brings in a competition "Paper tiger" story of two brothers who in the Brooklyn of the eighties would like to get into society but end up in the sights of the Russian mob. In the cast also Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller
Cannes Review: James Gray’s Paper Tiger Is a Masterfully Measured, Quintessentially Subtle New York Tale
James Gray had left the comfort zone of the native New York he chronicled over the first two decades of his career, sending Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, and Tom Holland into the Amazon jungle for The Lost City of Z and launching Brad Pitt into space with Ad Astra. With his previous feature, Armageddon Time, the wizened filmmaker—whose borne the reputation as a deeply humane screenwriter, quietly piercing storyteller, and cinematic historian…
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