By Louis Zylka
The 830 Times
Director James Gray is tackling the awards season with his new directed feature about a fictional crime thriller taking place in the 1980s. “Paper Tiger” is a period piece starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Miles Teller, and it focuses on the hardships citizens deal with during the Cold War.
The film opens in the suburbs of 1986 Queens (one of the five boroughs in New York), where we focus on a small family of four. Irwin Pearl (Teller) and Hester Pearl (Johansson) are raising two sons peacefully until Irwin’s brother Gary (Driver) visits them one day to give his brother a proposition to start a new business venture. This new business opportunity goes south when they get tangled with the Russian mafia.
Gray’s film follows Irwin trying to protect his family from oncoming threats while still trying to maintain their normal lives. Though it may seem familiar, “Paper Tiger” is carried by its Oscar-worthy performances. Driver and Johansson give the best performances some critics are calling career-defining. Teller does a competent job playing Johansson’s husband, and while he does deliver a strong performance, he still feels type cast as a father figure while still looking like a frat boy in college.
While the tension is not as gripping as the scenes in “The Godfather” or “Heat,” several scenes will still put you on the edge of your seat. And the drama balances out the story to gravitate you towards the characters’ lives and emotional trauma.
“Paper Tiger” does end on an unfulfilling note, but you will still be left with the emotional aspects and gut-wrenching moments that impact these innocent characters. Although there are no huge surprises in the plot, Gray’s new film is one of the best of the year.
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