This is one of those films that gives the impression it is written by someone who is more a fan of the genre than a practitioner. It contains all the usual elements found in these 'tough' and 'gritty' crime dramas the questionable loyalty between hoods who have grown up together on the mean streets of the city's slums, the psychotic gangster, the tough but vulnerable single mum, the doting mother, the sleazy clubs, the random acts of violence, the pop music soundtrack but never once comes close to showing any signs of originality.
James Marsden as anonymous a leading man as you are ever likely to find plays the son of a mobster drummed out of the marines for stealing a jeep and going after Saddam on his own when the US call off the Gulf War on the dictator's doorstep back in '91. He is offered a deal by shady cop Brian Dennehy (looking surprisingly trim but worryingly frail) to help put away a mobster from his old neighbourhood in return for his freedom from military prison. Returning to his old haunts, he falls in with his slightly feeble-minded brother and his cousin ably played by Giovanni Ribisi who is about to embark on a gang war with the mobster in question, which leads to the usual conflict of loyalties.
After watching this I wondered not only why I bothered watching it through to its inevitable conclusion, but also why anybody bothered putting up the money for it. The script is pedestrian at best, and the storyline never wavers from a path that is as predictable as it is dull. Only the quality of the acting, and especially a blistering performance from Ribisi, make this worth watching at all. Well that and the unintentionally hilarious death scene of one-legged gangster, Julian.
