Movie Review: James Gray Delivers a Milestone Crime Drama in ‘Paper Tiger’ – WTOP News
James Gray’s drama follows a Queens family chasing a risky windfall as a canal cleanup deal and violent Russian threats upend their lives.
- On Friday, James Gray's 1986 Queens drama Paper Tiger opens in select theaters, expanding nationwide on November 20. The Neon release is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language and some violence.
- Engineer Irwin Pearl joins his brother, ex-cop Gary , in a business venture involving Russian immigrants to develop the Gowanus Canal. Gary promises a $10k windfall to help Irwin's mounting college costs.
- While Irwin represents stability, Gary operates a private security firm with flash and charisma. Their brotherly bond faces a dangerous test as they inadvertently entangle themselves with the Russian mob in Brighton Beach.
- A botched "nighttime risk assessment" forces the brothers into a violent confrontation with armed men. The film methodically builds dread as their choices lead to a tragic showdown, revealing the heavy price of their attempted shortcut to success.
- Linking this film to previous works like Little Odessa and We Own the Night, Gray explores family ties and ambition. The director crafts a grand, operatic tragedy about the inescapable bonds that bind brothers together.
13 Articles
13 Articles
Paper Tiger Review: James Gray’s Gritty Crime Drama Is a Tense, Tragic Character Study About Family and Ambition
Director James Gray returns to his crime drama roots with Paper Tiger, which features some of the strongest performances of Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson’s careers.
James Gray’s “Paper Tiger” is Brilliantly Murky
James Gray’s 2007 underworld drama We Own the Night closes on a whispered affirmation of solidarity between siblings. The brothers, who have survived a series of clashes with the Russian mob, pledge their devotion to each other, in a moment of profound connection and of desolation. At the end of a story defined by loss, they have each other’s backs and nothing else.The enveloping bonds of brotherly love—and how swiftly they can tighten, in spite…
'Paper Tiger' Review: Real roots neo-noir from James Gray
The phrase “return to form” is loaded, especially when it’s used to praise a director for getting “back on track” after some sort of ambition flop. But what else can you really call James Gray’s Paper Tiger other than a return to an established form, it being the type of story (Russian mobsters, crooked cops) and setting (‘80s NYC) that served as Gray’s bread-and-butter for the first two decades of his career? Every review of Gray’s drama Armage…
Movie Review: James Gray delivers a milestone crime drama in ‘Paper Tiger’ – WTOP News
The American Dream has seldom looked so bleak as in “Paper Tiger,” James Gray’s beautifully punishing tragedy about a middle class family in Queens. With operatic grace and 35 mm grit, “Paper Tiger” shrewdly and authentically explores ideas about wealth, worth, the cost of family and the price of wanting more. In 1986 New York,...
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