La Traición

The cast and acting in this crime/drama is great, but the actors are let down by a melodramatic script that is too busy. "The Yards" is a character-driven story, but the problem is that the script has too many subplots going on which doesn't give us the time we need to know and care about the characters. By the end I really didn't care what happened, because I didn't know the characters and didn't care how the plot was resolved.

Basically "The Yards" tells the story of Leo, a working class young man who returns home from a stint in prison to his ailing mother. His best friend, Willie, takes him on at Leo's step-uncle's subway train outfitting business, where things aren't exactly above-the-board. Leo gets more involved in the business and things go awry. And along the way, there's a hundred and one subplots.

This movie had some nice moments, and great acting, but it can't rise above a script that tries to pack too much plot into too little time.

I've just read someone else's review of this film that claims there are too many subplots, that it is too melodramatic and that there is so much going on the reviewer ended up not caring what happened.

This could not be further from the truth. There are only a couple of subplots, and they are very basic, easy-to-understand concepts that do not get in the way of the main theme.

I would also contest that this is a 'romance'. Whilst this is one of the subplots, putting it under 'romance' as one of the main genres is mildly misleading.

The performances from all central actors are excellent. As my title suggests this is a slow-burner but Walburg puts in a great performance and I DID care what happened to him in the end.

Oh, and listen out for the soundtrack. It really is quite striking.

. . . you know you've got a movie that tried something different. Not NEW, necessarily, as The Yards is paced, structured and shot like it was made before 1976. But you don't see that often these days. The Yards is an entertaining and noble attempt at a tribute to crime films of that era. I have friends who don't have the attention span to sit through The Godfather(on some days neither do I) - I wouldn't recommend this film to them. Reared as our younger generation was on Spielbergian and MTV-cut films, the pacing of both that film and The Yards are slow and deliberate - sometimes hard to take. The Yards could have used a bit of tightening up in editing, just seconds off of a scene here, a scene there to move things along, but still, it's a strong film. The first thing that caught my eye was the sparse dialogue. There's a lot of acting going on here, and not of the scenery-chewing variety (recent Pacino). The actors are given a lot of room to act with their eyes and bodies. You're not hit over the head with 2-D stock characters, although it may appear so at first. The story is genre: ex-con, returning to his New York borough neighborhood falls right into the same circles that got him in trouble in the first place. What follows is a story of corruption, redemption and family; structured almost as a Greek Tragedy. But quietly. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys", as almost everyone is on the make. The overall impression projected is that everyone is protecting their own and trying to succeed in a system that they live in - not one they created or control.

Mark Wahlberg isn't a great actor, but he delivers what the character requires. Charlize Theron isn't in her element playing a Queens-chick, but aside from a faltering accent, she does pretty well. Excellent acting is delivered by Joachin Phoenix, as well as veterans Caan, Dunaway, and Ellen Burstyn. The Yards is a good movie, although admittedly, not for the "average" movie-going audience. It likely won't meet their expectations of what a "good" movie is.

"The Yards" invites you to taste corruption and to witness an imposed morality and then slyly allows you to resolve its escalating entanglements. It is a well-acted morality tale written and directed by James Gray that is as topical now as when the first bureaucrat accepted graft. Mark Wahlberg's Leo Handler character is a loser who seeks to redeem himself from the neglect of his sick mother and the evil he has done to others. If only his friends and relatives had similarly good intentions. The world he inhabits is a society with the unwritten code of conduct to never snitch or else pay the consequences. The best scene involves Leo as he nervously proceeds with his orders to kill the policeman who can finger him in the rail yard assault. Can he justify yet one more crime in order to maintain the good graces of his benefactors? Joaquin Phoenix's character, Willie, is perhaps the most tormented figure, having to choose between his high-minded intentions and his immoral survival instincts. He becomes less the controller and more the henchman of what others tell him to do. The excellent cast gives "The Yard" a true flavor of the perverse nature of favoritism from Faye Dunaway and James Caan to Ellen Burstyn and Charlize Theron (in a surprisingly youthful dark mascara look). However, Joan Allen would have added a harsher, more pessimistic visage to the sometimes inappropriately bubbly Burstyn. This film displays well how corruption commands people's lives and how hard it is to break out of that code of conduct.

The Yards is labelled a thriller, at least here in Sweden, but I think that this movie is a drama more than anything else. A very dark drama about crime and family. I was pleasantly surprised when I realised that this was not the Godfather-wannabe that some people have suggested. The Yards stands on its own, and even though it is no masterpiece it is a very interesting and tense drama with a great cast. Mark Wahlberg does a good job, but Joaquin Phoenix is certainly the stand-out. Also, his complex character is by far more interesting than Wahlberg's stereotype. Great performances from Charlize Theron and James Caan as well. (7/10)