What Doesn't Kill You

Great true story about responsibility and choices
Where do I begin? Acting - top class. Cinematography - terrific. Story - what can be better than real life stories?
"This is me, this is what I do." Brian (Mark Ruffalo) to his wife - played by Amanda Peet.
He is a Boston criminal. He doesn't know any better and neither does his friend Paulie (Ethan Hawke). Both have been doing jobs for their boss since they were kids.
Things go quite well at first. Brian makes a living. Nothing special but he and his family are doing all right. Then drugs get in the way and he loses control. A job goes wrong and both Brian and Paulie end up in jail.
There Brian finally realizes what he was throwing away all this time. A loving wife who still holds on to him, two great kids, love.
To me the best moment in the film is a scene after Brian is back home from prison and he talks to his eldest son on the porch. He knows he can't let them down again. If he does he will lose everything he ever had.
So he makes a choice, takes the...

Environmental influences breeding sociopathy...a true story.
Mark Ruffalo (Brian) and Ethan Hawke (Paulie) are childhood friends, growing up on the mean-streets of South Boston. Early on, they are overtaken by the path of least resistance toward easy money, through the negative environmental influences surrounding them. They eventually become runners, and, the heavy-hand, for organized crime boss Pat Kelly (Brian Goodman). Sadly, given their surroundings, it became their destiny---'the apple does not fall far from the tree.'

As the viewer you are able to observe these boys evolve from small time crime, to full-blown, risk-taking, men, with little remorse for social misconduct and an aversion toward authority figures. Interestingly, Antisocial Personality Disorders only need to have 3, or more, of 7 traits, and these characters portrayed them all---to perfection. You begin to see neither of them as having any socially redeeming value. Could redemption be possible with such a prognosis?

This film is brilliantly acted,...

A solid performance film, an average Blu
I was pleasantly surprised in seeing this excellent minimalist crime drama by first-time writer/director (and former jail occupant) Brian Goodman. For as little as the Blu format gets tested with this film though, I still appreciated the landscapes being preserved in 1080 to give this a decent rating.

The story centers on two childhood friends in South Boston and their 20+ year span of semi-organized crime, drugs and family life. Ethan Hawke and Mark Ruffalo both give outstanding performances with all of their usual nuances, and even a few new ones; Hawke's voice and demeanor has changed significantly of late. The trailer shows most of the action in the film, but just expect a well crafted dialogue and bleak visuals story about crime, addiction and loss.

The outer channels get used very little except for two or three gun scenes, and the picture clarity was all about seeing Boston in winter. There were actually no colors in the entire film except for one scene in...

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