Went into this one with a completely white slate - read no reviews, just a brief synopsis from IMDB, so on that basis I really knew only the fact that it was a Lumet direction and his previous films were impressive (think Dog Day Afternoon and Network).

The film appears to set out to be a melange of provocative, a deterministic deconstruction of the mind, body and soul, all given that the victims and the criminals mostly belong to one family. A robbery that goes horribly wrong, and the consequences for those on both sides. The director goes to great (perhaps even minuscule) length to make you understand the characters, and the emotions they exude as they are playing their parts. I’m not sure I liked or needed the point being hammered home from different perspectives, but then again, I may have complained if the characters were not fleshed out!

In parts I thought it a bit muddled, it certainly seemed to have all the right flavouring, but it seemed dispiriting, being desperately downbeat and hardly a choice for Christmas release. As far as performances went, it was very good, Lumet does have the knack of pulling the best from his cast, but the bleakness of the work overall left me with a sour taste.

I would recommend it to the hard bitten lovers of the noir genre, but otherwise it seems a bit of a mean slice of life.

8/10 - A black, twisted thriller.