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While this is not a Hollywood-style, over-the-top, cars-exploding, blood- spattering, machine-guns-blazing standard gangster film, it's worth anyone's time, largely because it says so much about what effect a life of crime has on the family life of the criminal. Boyd's wife gets lots of attention in this film, and we see clearly the terrible situation she and her children are put in because of her husband's career as a bank robber. She doesn't seem to be complicit, other than by not abandoning him. This focus is only possible, of course, because Boyd started out as an ordinary man trying to provide for his family, not as some delinquent street tough who was headed for the criminal life from his earliest years. It's the family connection that gives this film some emotional depth beyond the usual gangster narrative. When Boyd gets out of jail for the last time and tries to get his wife to join him again, and she has to refuse him because she is re-married and "doing good" for herself and their children, the story achieves real poignancy.
Kevin Durand makes a terrific tough guy, someone you would not want to meet in a dark alley.
A check with wikipedia shows some places where the script deviates from history, but nothing very outrageous, despite the suggestion of a previous reviewer here. For Canadians this story has special interest. Edwin Alonzo Boyd was one of the country's most famous and colourful (with a 'u') criminals.
score 7/10
deschreiber 2 December 2012
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2713713/ |
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27-2-2021 10:29:02