The energy of the characters, and their skill as actors, is on full display here. They needed more to work with. The characters are authentic enough, but nothing out of the box, though the script is lively and one of the best parts. The story is a little too obvious, and slightly unbelievable. A young nobody being raised to the heights of the 'Firm's' higher echelon without much more than a wink and a single go at tenement soccer is just a tad far-fetched, and it's also a theme we've seen too many times before. Hell, even the old Tom Cruise movie The Firm (1993) had a similar theme. The banter and the suffering parents though, was inspired. And as a coming of age movie The Firm is pretty cool, and also inspired. This is a good movie, engaging, beautifully filmed in authentic locations, great tunes (for the first half anyway), capturing a little of its bombast day in high contrast colour, and has a decent message, that when the bluster becomes more than just bluster, well, serious things happen.
Review of The Firm
