The Yards

REVIEW
Director Gray made a striking debut with Little Odessa, an icy drama about the Russian mob in Brooklyn. Here, Gray slithers back into the underworld of New York and creates yet another indelible portrait of rot in the Big Apple. Wahlberg plays a likable ex-con trying to go straight, doomed to be dragged back into a life on the other side of the law when he takes a job with his Uncle (Caan), an influential Transit Authority contractor. Phoenix is the childhood friend who's already made a name for himself in the "company," and whose fits of sudden rage trigger a devastating chain of events. Gray has once again assembled a superb cast, but if the film misses greatness by "thissmuch" it's merely because the substantial weight of so many heavy-hitters makes the screenplay's rote emotional melodramatics seem all the more distracting. Still, the film's sweeping visual style is dreamily seductive and Gray's street-smart intensity could prompt one to compare him to Sidney Lumet as the new master-craftsman of the New York crime story.