Final Rating: 4.5/5
In James Gray’s latest film, Paper Tiger, the bond between brothers is pushed to its absolute limit when one of them gets in too deep and upsets some dangerous people after overstepping his boundary.
It’s the end of summer in New York in 1986 and engineer Irwin Pearl (Miles Teller) is worried about money. His business is doing well, but his eldest son is about to go to college and his younger one is not far behind. His wife Linda (Scarlett Johansson) also wants the family to move into a more upscale neighbourhood.
Irwin’s brother Gary (Adam Driver) is an ex-NYC cop who now runs a security assessment firm and has an idea for the two of them to finally work together and make a lot of money. New York had worked on clearing out the mob run government institutions and allowing new immigrants to readily purchase businesses. Gary has a lead that a new group of Russians who purchased an oil company are looking to do an environmental study on the canal they work off of. The perfect opportunity for Gary and Irwin to consult on.
Despite claiming that these Russians are legitimate business owners, Gary still warns Irwin that they are nervous and don’t trust Americans. After getting $10,000 just to do a consult, Irwin takes his boys out to do a night survey as the canal will react differently once it isn’t being used. Irwin unfortunately wanders in on the group illegally dumping oil waste, and the Russians thinking he will rat them out, threaten both Irwin and his boys, spiralling things out of control very quickly.
Despite being a clean cop, Gary still knows his way around the system of bribes and the underworld and sets off to get these Russians off his brother and his family’s back. At first it is a request of $125,000, then it is for Gary to become a proper partner of their organization helping them with Port Authority and Customs connections and lastly it is something neither man can afford.
The bond between Gary and Irwin is mirrored by Irwin’s sons Scott (Gavin Goudey) and Ben (Roman Engel), who begin the film constantly fighting each other over anything and everything. After being threatened at gun point by the Russians, they immediately band together and trauma bond with one another.
Paper Tiger is a masterful work of tension building, leading to a sequence that is legitimately one of the scariest ones of the year as the Russians prove just how close they can get to the Pearl family home. Irwin tries to maintain order in his house by keeping the family calm, while simultaneously getting angrier at his brother for even putting him in this position.
Linda has her own secrets as her health starts to fail at the same time this is happening leading both sides of the couple to keep secrets from one another. If there is one knock against the film it sadly comes at the expense of Scarlett Johansson, who unfortunately gets little more to do than be an angry housewife who is getting ill. She isn’t bad in the film, but rather underutilized and it shows.
Adam Driver projects an air of sophistication and calmness to his nephews and family, but under all the bravado he is terrified for putting his brother in harm’s way. His stoicism is bellied by acts of violence done so efficiently and brutally that you wonder what he likely did while wearing a badge.
Miles Teller turns in his best performance since Whiplash as well, his earnestness and desire to protect his family despite not having the skillset shines through. He’s funny and charming and has a great bond with everyone in his familial unit along with great admiration for his brother who is more successful than him.
Gray’s work is phenomenal here giving us an all time shoot out scene and numerous other moments that will be highlights of the year. Despite having plenty of critical hits with films like The Lost City of Z, Ad Astra and The Immigrant, he hasn’t had a film break through the mainstream yet both at the box office and during awards season and Paper Tiger looks to hopefully achieve both for him.
Paper Tiger was seen during the 2026 Vancouver International Film Festival.
