Paper Tiger

Paper Tiger opens with a standard crime thriller set-up: two brothers, one reckless and one cautious, edging toward disaster in pursuit of the American dream. Yet James Gray manages to turn that sense of familiarity to his advantage.

Set in 1980s Queens, the picture follows Gary (Adam Driver), a street-smart former cop, and his younger brother Irwin (Miles Teller), an awkward engineer dragged into a dangerous scheme involving the clean-up of the polluted Gowanus Canal that quickly entangles them with the titular “paper tiger” – the Russian mob.

This shift away from the familiar Italian-American mafia turns out to be one of the film’s smartest decisions. Gray uses the Soviet shadow hanging over Reagan-era New York not as explicit political commentary but as atmosphere: the Cold War is not mentioned, yet it lingers over every exchange and escalation, feeding the feature’s anxious mood. It gives Paper Tiger a distinct identity within the vast lineage of New York crime dramas. The story is unexpectedly effective as a period piece. Gray pays close attention to the economic realities of New York in that era: the expensive Peter Luger steaks Gary brings to dinner, the impossible Ivy League tuition for Irwin’s son, and the broad-shouldered power suits straight out of Wall Street (1987) and American Psycho (2000).

Driver and Teller work especially well together, their performances built around friction rather than connection. Gary is a different kind of role for Driver, who more often plays quieter, more introverted characters, while Teller leans into Irwin’s hesitancy without reducing him to weakness. Their dynamic – push and pull, resentment and loyalty – carries much of the picture’s emotional weight. Scarlett Johansson, as Irwin’s wife Hester, brings warmth and intelligence to a role that functions more as a symbol of domestic stability than a fully developed character.

Not everything lands: some of the villains verge on caricature, and a few action scenes move so quickly that they lose some impact. Even so, Paper Tiger remains gripping throughout, driven by the two lead performances and Gray’s sharp sense of the decade’s climate of ambition and paranoia.