Paper Tiger, the latest crime thriller from James Grey, a master of the genre, begins with a warning from Greek tragedist Aeschylus. It is meant both for us and its main characters, though it will help neither.
We know going in that things will only get worse, and while our anti-heroes, the brothers Irwin (Miles Teller) and Gary (Adam Driver), have a gut feeling their get-rich-quick scheme isn't up to snuff, it's not like they'd listen to any sound advice, either. Everything that will happen is destined to, and there is a sense of doomed certainty in every moment of this gripping, beautifully staged story of greed tearing the family unit apart.
What makes Paper Tiger so ruthlessly effective is how little violence or money we see in the entire film. There is plenty of talk of both, and a sense that either one could come at us at any moment. When it does, it is with such plainness that it almost feels like a cheat. Suddenly, there is money on the table, and just as suddenly, death is a guest at the table, and no one can quite remember when he walked in.
That understated nature will potentially alienate some, as will the loose, ambiguous structure that refuses easy answers. But these are elements of a definitive artistic vision. They are a feature, not a bug. We catch only a defining moment in vast and complex lives, and we have to make peace with that.
The story is simple and grand all at once. Irwin lives a quiet, unassuming life with his wife, Hester (Scarlett Johansson), and two boys in New Jersey. His brother, Gary, is a tornado of a man who comes and goes as he pleases, and there is joy in his sudden appearances that always promise a good time.
One day, Gary brings Irwin in on his latest scheme. It is the 80s, the Cold War has ended, and the Russian mafia has arrived in New York. The idea is to hustle them with consulting services over the newly required pollution initiatives, which, of course, the boys would deliver at a premium. "No one else is doing this", Gary assures Irwin, and both are so excited about the prospect of wealth that they never stop to think maybe legit businesses would pay just the same.
Naturally, things don't work out, and they keep not working out. Both men make bad decisions, but it's clear this is not their normal behavior. Gary and Irwin flail because they are prey caught by an animal they don't understand. An antelope doesn't strategize as the lion bites into its neck.
Driver and Teller are fantastic as two men who fantasize about the American Dream, even as they're already living one form of it. They're comfortable, if not wealthy, and life could be good with limited expectations. But that is not the world they bought into, and it's the pursuit of a manufactured destiny that begins to tear what little they have apart, especially as Irwin can't even see Hester suffer through a debilitating illness, one that quietly upends their life for good without ever announcing it.
Johansson has a tough part that often comes across as underwritten, and some moments feel overplayed at first. Then, as Grey reveals his hand further, the performance begins to make sense, just as it broke my heart. Like many things in Paper Tiger, it is immense sorrow told with such matter-of-factness that it doesn't register until it's too late.
Paper Tiger is a superbly told morality play that evokes the golden era of smart American thrillers, which are just as much about the failure of the social contract as they are about the crime itself. It is a film wound so tightly you can feel the tension in every frame.
If another New Jersey poet, Bruce Springsteen, has spent his career measuring the distance between American reality and the American Dream, it is Grey who has painted us collage after collage of that vast, biblical expanse, and the endless dreams buried in it.
