beorhhouse I was really liking this slow, well-acted film until the rock music started blaring, of course reminding everyone of the rock music so prevalent in the 1940s. Not. I turned it off. Enough said.

Bantam Okay, the movie is based on a true story (a fad nowadays, it seems), and it most certainly has its moments. But in general the entire flick lacks some panache. If it were a Canadian province, I'd say it's (northern) Manitoba on a Tuesday night.While the main protagonist is portrayed rather decently, as well as his 'transformation' the rest of the movie is a bit stale and dry - I'd go so far to say clinically clean. Yeah, I get it, he's quite a normal guy, a victim of circumstance and all, trying to make ends meet and all. And I dig the story, but it's like eating a loaf of dry bread - you satisfy your hunger but without much joy. Personally I think the director (maybe as writer, too), tried a bit too hard to make it "arty" and forgot that a movie also should be entertaining, otherwise it's just bland ol' life. I'll keep the director in mind, maybe his next flick will be less Manitoba and more Québec.

Bene Cumb Toronto was seemingly a nice and secure town after the World War II, and no or poor security measures in prisons and banks made gangs' ideas and plans easy to fulfill and proceed. Moreover, radios and black-and-white newspapers were not much of help in engaging co-citizens for identification and informing about criminals. Such was the surroundings where Boyd and his fellows lived their life; not as brightly as their U.S. counterparts before and then, which is probably the reason why the depiction is not that catchy and even robberies resemble asking money nicely in the presence of guns... Pre-robbery scenes are too long and only loosely connected with the remaining story, and the ending is rather awkward. The cast is uneven as well, with non-Canadians performing more versatile (Kelly Reilly as Doreen Boyd and Brian Cox as Glover); those presenting the Boyd gang seemed not catchy to me.Thus, an above-average story based on real events and characters, but not a must-see movie.

deschreiber 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.