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Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson are targeted by the mafia as a family.
Image: © RT Features
James Gray's "Paper Tiger" is one of only two US productions in competition at Cannes. Its excellent cast not only brings glamor to the Croisette, but also high cinematic art.
As one of the few US indie productions in this year's competition at the Cannes Film Festival, expectations were correspondingly high for "Paper Tiger". Can the film, which also brings a good dose of glamour to the South of France with its top-class cast including Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson, uphold the honor of American cinema?
Yes, it can and it does. James Gray, who also presented his last film "Armageddon Time" in Cannes in 2022, is returning to his roots with "Paper Tiger". His first two films, "Little Odessa" and "The Yards", were crime dramas or thrillers.
"Paper Tiger" is both a family drama and a crime thriller - similar to classic gangster films. The story is set in New York in the 1980s. The charismatic Adam Driver plays the private security officer and former cop Gary. His brother Irwin (Miles Teller) works as an engineer and lives a modest but harmonious family life with his wife Hester (Scarlett Johansson) and their two teenage sons.
Gary approaches his brother with a lucrative business idea. With his experience as an engineer, he is to help him with a local canal clean-up project at the harbor. The project would involve Russian immigrants - mainly engineers and scientists. However, it turns out that the Russian business partners have other characters involved. Before they know it, Irwin's family find themselves in a life-threatening situation and the brothers become entangled in a web of blackmail and corruption.
With "Paper Tiger", James Gray succeeds in creating an atmospherically dense, highly suspenseful film that is truly oppressive in its most intense moments. At the same time, with the background of his family history and the serious illness of his wife Hester, it is also emotionally moving - both in a cheerful and tragic way.
The acting performances are all formidable. Adam Driver and Miles Teller work brilliantly as mismatched brothers who repeatedly come to blows. And Scarlett Johansson proves once again that she is one of the most expressive actresses working today. It is also hugely important that the actors playing the Russian gangsters actually come across as very menacing and in no way as comical caricatures.
The style of "Paper Tiger" is also outstanding. It captures the era of the 80s beautifully and its dark, shadowy visual design creates the right atmosphere for the family's tricky situation. A brilliant showdown scene in the cornfield, which is hard to beat in terms of tension and intensity, also deserves a special mention.
"Paper Tiger" does not yet have a Swiss release date. However, this should hopefully change soon. blue News will keep you up to date.
