The Yards

"The Yards" is a new film directed and written by James Gray which describes corruption in the New York City subways - more specifically, in their maintenance contracting processes. Yet even though most of this film takes place aboveground, watching "The Yards" is actually a lot like riding the NYC subway. You meet a wide variety of interesting people, from common scum to uncommonly scummy politicians, without having to really get to know them. You witness the occasional violent crime. You bask in the splendor of postindustrial decay, from vast steelscapes to virtually unceasing halflighting. And your ride is very, very slow, and liable to lurch to an inexplicable halt at any minute. So when you emerge from the darkness two hours later, you'll have gotten where you're going, but you may not be satisfied with how you got there.

"Marky" Mark Wahlberg, modern cinema's best portrayer of very stupid characters, plays Leo Handler, a good-hearted but very stupid kid who's just been released from prison. Everyone is very glad to see him come home, including his mother (Ellen Burstyn), his best friend Willie Gutierrez (Joaquin Phoenix), and his uncle Frank (James Caan), who runs struggling subway contractor Electric Rail Co. Leo wants to make some money to help his mother, and Frank wants to help him earn some. Leo rejects Frank's suggestion that he become a machinist, however, and decides to learn Willie's end of the business, which promises quick cash in Leo's pocket. Unfortunately, Willie's end of the business is bribery, sabotage and intimidation — not the best work for someone trying to stay clean on parole. As you might expect, something catastrophic happens which leaves Frank, Willie and Leo scrambling to figure out who's going to take the fall and how much of the sleaze oozing around the subway contractors will be exposed to the harsh light of day. Oh yeah: Leo and Willie also have some unfinished business regarding Willie's girlfriend Erica (Charlize Theron), whom Willie wants to marry and Leo loves.

There's actually much more plot than this, including the fact that Frank's wife Kitty is Leo's mom's sister, and since Erica is Kitty's daughter (and Frank's stepdaughter), that makes her Leo's cousin, by which fact Leo does not seem particularly bothered. We have very little time to get to know each individual character because of the baroque entanglements of the plot, and that (not incest) is one of the main problems of "The Yards." As the cast list above shows, good actors absolutely litter this film. But with the exception of Wahlberg, who as the main character gets plenty of time to deliver his pitch-perfect, keenly sympathetic performance, no one can really get to the bottom of his or her character in the time allotted. Gray has overstuffed "The Yards" with plot; he might have served his film better by serving us a little less of it.

The other major problem of this film is that it moves excruciatingly slowly. Gray has engaged some interesting issues in this film, and has also engaged some good actors to dramatize them. Understandably, he wants to let each scene unfold at a pace which will let it have its maximum impact on the audience. Unfortunately, Gray has decided that the best pace is always the most ponderous. This may not seem like a big problem, and it doesn't affect the beginning of the film, but after you've seen the only soporific hand-to-hand fight between two best friends over a woman in cinema history and a hit-man scene which is extended past drama to sleepiness, you'll wish Gray had ramped up the pace a little somewhere, just for contrast. In addition, Gray encourages his actors to read their lines calmly and coolly even when extremely upset, which is probably not realistic and definitely contributes to the dragging feeling of the thirty minutes of seemingly Demerol-inflected dialogue which end the film.

Otherwise, Gray serves his script well with his direction; as noted above, his landscapes are memorable and dramatically lit, he has a way with depicting faces, and he elicits good performances from most of his actors. "The Yards" is a well-made film. It's so well-made, in fact, that it nearly collapses from its own ponderous gravitas and inability to simply give up one or two of its subplots to allow us to concentrate on the main one. "The Yards" really should have been a good film, and it certainly achieves more than most recent dramas do. But in the subway of cinema, "The Yards" is a well-maintained train which is nevertheless stopped in the middle of the tunnel.

Dramas Home

Movie Reviews Home

Spam-O-Matic Home