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Critics reviews

THE YARDS

James Gray United States, 2000
James Gray, who grew up in Queens, derived the plot both from things he had heard growing up and from real political scandals of the era. But the emotional fury, deriving from conflicting loyalties, a sense of betrayal, and frustrated romance, is entirely Gray's own. Every character in the film is sustained by family bonds, and every one of those characters is driven by those bonds to self-destruction.
September 25, 2012
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James Gray (book)
Like many a great film that was not revered upon release, it's perhaps easier with hindsight to see how The Yards is very much the cornerstone of Gray's cinema... You could call it the ultimate Queens film. The film's setting is surely one of the keys to its grandeur: only in a world so close to Manhattan, yet ever so far, could a movie about warring subway contractors take on the scope and intensity of a Viscontian epic.
December 14, 2011
Ultimately, the visuals may be too responsible for the resonance; Wahlberg and Theron are ciphers who do little more than recite their urban patter. But Gray approaches the vaguely ethnic universe he's limned with genuinely compassionate curiosity, even if he hasn't fleshed it out enough to consistently provoke ours. (The film's most precious moment might be a perfunctory conversation about Walbaum's between Burstyn and Faye Dunaway's aging sisters.)
May 3, 2011
Where the film does register is as a study of a family torn apart by betrayal and bad faith. With few shoot-outs or kinetic action scenes, The Yards relies on the subtlety and intensity of the performances, most of which are excellent... Ultimately, The Yards is well enough acted and scripted to bear comparison with the character-driven films of the 70s it strives to emulate.
November 1, 2000
A disappointing follow-up to Little Odessa, James Gray's second feature is one more sluggish, artfully framed thriller with Rembrandt lighting set in a New York borougha kind of picture that's awfully hard to do in a fresh manner. The closest Gray comes is in coaxing strong performances out of his older actors (James Caan, Ellen Burstyn, and Faye Dunaway in a smaller part), much as he did with Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell in his previous film.
November 1, 2000
In terms of conventional suspense, the film is too muted and sombre to deliver the goods convincingly, but as a character study and an exploration of different notions of family, friendship, duty and loyalty, the careful attention to detail pays off. A great cast helps, as does the sometimes surprising use of music (notably Holst's 'Saturn').
November 1, 2000