Review: James Grays star-studded Paper Tiger is a murky crime thriller about ignorant squares
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Set us as preferred Fittingly for a crime thriller about the umpteenth failed attempt to decontaminate the Gowanus Canal, the dangerous ideas in James Gray’s “Paper Tiger” lurk under its plenty filthy surface.It’s 1986 and two brothers launch a business advising the companies along this polluted waterfront on how to come into legal environmental compliance.In truth, it’s impossible.
This two-mile stretch of river is a symbol of the devil’s bargain between big business and consumers.Over a century ago, the Gowanus played a vital role in industrializing New York City — and, by extension, the United States — as a hub for coal, gas, cement, chemical and meatpacking plants along with heritage corporations including Kraft, Coca-Cola and Sears.
The country got rich, shoppers got easier access to goods and the ground got poisoned.Irwin (Miles Teller), a family man and engineer, would earnestly like to clean up the neighborhood.Gary (Adam Driver), a divorced ex-cop and the older and better-connected of the siblings, came up with the get-rich plan and is content to simply pocket a consulting fee.
The new owners down there, Gary insists, are Russians, not mobbed-up Italians, and the shifting power structure could finally give their Jewish family an opening to earn extra dough.Hester (Scarlett Johansson), Irwin’s wife and the mother of their two teenage sons, is savvy enough to insist that they get paid in cash.
Movies After three decades of stardom, Scarlett Johansson has the clout to choose her own path.But as she stars in James Gray’s “Paper Tiger,” she’s still working out where she wants that path to lead.
Everyone is in over their heads.That, you could already guess.
Since his 1994 debut “Little Odessa,” Gray has continually spun stories about ordinary people mired in corruption.To him, it’s personal.
In 1991, Gray’s own father, an electronics manufacturer also named Irwin, was ...