Adam Driver and Miles Teller co-star in James Gray’s “Paper Tiger.”
Is James Gray too good for his own good?
The filmmaker has been making great features for more than 30 years, and in a variety of genres. He did “The Immigrant,” a period piece about a poor Polish woman in turn-of-the-century New York. The sci-fi drama “Ad Astra.” The darkly moody romance “Two Lovers.” The quiet coming-of-age tale “Armageddon Time.”
All of these connected more with some critics than with mainstream movie-goers, although that hardly slowed their director down, or stifled his ambitions. (His list of “Unrealized and upcoming projects” runs to 21 paragraphs on Wikipedia).
It is a shame, though, that Gray’s movies haven’t found a larger audience, because they are all good films. And even better are the ones when he returns to his more consistent obsessions: dreary middle-class homes in the outer boroughs, sibling rivalries that break into violence, old ethnic tribalism, moral compromises that inevitably lead to crime.
And those are themes he returns to in “Paper Tiger,” opening Nov. 13.
Set in 1980s Queens (but largely shot in Denville Township), it is the story of two brothers. Miles Teller is sad-sack Irwin, running a small electronics business and worried about how he is going to put his oldest boy through college. Adam Driver is Gary, a retired New York police detective who still swaggers around the city like a prince.
Adam Driver in “Paper Tiger.”
A recent divorce, though, has taken a bite out of Gary’s lifestyle. So he approaches Irwin with an idea: There is talk that the city is finally going to clean up, and redevelop, the Gowanus Canal area in Brooklyn. With Irwin’s engineering background and Gary’s municipal “connections,” maybe they can get a piece of the action, helping local businesses navigate new environmental regulations and endless paperwork.
Great idea, right?
Awful idea — particularly since it involves going into partnership with some waterfront characters with thick Russian accents, short tempers and a very muscular approach to business negotiations.
As in his last film, “Armageddon Time” — to which this was briefly envisioned as a sequel — the characters comprise a very real, unstereotypical Jewish family that doesn’t quite fit in. Gary, still a hungry striver, is a little too slick, a little too flashy, without the protection of the NYPD behind him; Irwin, middle-aged before his time, is a little too mild, a little too defeated to oversee a successful local business (if only he’d gotten into Penn, Irwin says, things would have been different).
And as in some of Gray’s earlier films — particularly the early, underappreciated “We Own the Night” — cut corners and bad choices quickly lead to trouble, which just as rapidly escalates. A wrong-place, wrong-time visit to the canal leads to death threats against Irwin and his family. A stubborn decision by Gary to “handle things” himself soon involves more violence, and the start of an FBI investigation.
Yet — also typically — Gray doesn’t indulge in violence for the sake of violence, or overly flashy action sequences. Given the opportunities for bold directorial choices, he typically takes the quieter, subtler option.
In the film’s most terrifying sequence, a home invasion, we don’t even see the perpetrators — just their dim shadows. One character’s demise is indicated by a silent, literal disappearance from the frame. Even the film’s’ climax is understated: the cat-and-mouse airport finale from Michael Mann’s “Heat,” restaged in silent, marshy wetlands.
Scarlett Johansson in “Paper Tiger.”
That restraint gives the actors a chance to shine. Teller hasn’t always connected before — his real-life eagerness sometimes came across onscreen as pushy arrogance — but his beaten-down dad is both sad and very real. And while Scarlett Johansson may not be your image of an ’80s outer-borough housewife — and has to work, a bit, to really inhabit the accent, and hairstyle — she has one tremendous scene in which her husband’s recklessness becomes clear to her.
The juiciest part goes to Driver, though, and once he gets it in his teeth, he never lets go. These may be working-class streets and filthy factories, but his Gary parades through them like a movie star. (Eager to pitch his scheme, he arrives at his brother’s house with an entire catered dinner-for-four from Peter Luger.) If Irwin is too small to swim in these waters, Gary is too big — and his splashing about very quickly attracts the attention of the real sharks.
Full of fierce emotions and compelling conflict, “Paper Tiger” plays to all of James Gray’s strengths. And perhaps he would be more acclaimed — or at least, better known — if he stuck to stories like this (his debut was the Brighton Beach crime drama, “Little Odessa”). But that would be taking it easy. Playing it safe.
And like with Gary, that is something Gray simply cannot do.
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