James Gray has become a critical darling, if not an audience favorite. Films like Armageddon Time, The Lost City of Z, and Ad Astra were received warmly by critics but largely shunned by audiences. Maybe it’s time for critics to shun him, too. Although nothing is egregiously bad about his latest movie, Paper Tiger, it ends up underwhelming because it is simply a bore.
What is Paper Tiger about?
Paper Tiger follows a pair of brothers who unwittingly get tied up in a scheme involving the Russian mafia after they attempt to start a family business. Anyone who knows the work of James Gray knows that he absolutely loves New York, and New York cinema in particular, and that has never been more abundantly clear than it is in Paper Tiger.
Paper Tiger Review
From a technical aspect, Paper Tiger is predictably handsome. It does a really good job of capturing the aesthetic of the ‘80s — an era that was incredibly important to American crime cinema. The costuming, production design, and cinematography are all very evocative. The only thing that comes up short is the score, which is overbearing in the way that the music from many James Gray films tends to be.
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That being said, Paper Tiger ends up feeling completely pointless. It’s really hard to tell what Gray wants the audience to take away from watching this movie. There’s no grand or cynical message about the American Dream. Even the commentary on family feels half-baked — you’d have better luck with a Fast and Furious movie.
There are also too many storylines to follow here for them all to be developed effectively. The relationship between the brothers is meant to be the primary emotional anchor for the movie, yet it all too often feels like this aspect of the storyline takes a backseat. And while Gray does try to give Scarlett Johansson her own storyline, this aspect comes up short as well.
Ultimately, it seems as if Gray intends Paper Tiger to be more of an exercise in genre than anything else. For better or worse, it feels like a relic of a bygone era of cinema. From a writing standpoint, it feels like it was written by someone with a bit too much admiration for New York mafia cinema — not quite to the level of a pretentious film student trying to knock off Scorsese and The Godfather, but perilously close.
The sole redeeming aspect of the movie is Adam Driver’s performance. Driver is the only one who seems to truly understand what this film is, leaning into the melodramatic aspects of the script and delivering a turn with heightened emotion that genuinely works. He also gets one incredible scene in the final act, wordless, that combined with excellent blocking and location work, will probably go down as one of the highlights of his career.
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Interestingly, despite being the movie’s true protagonist, Miles Teller shines much less brightly than Driver. It’s not that Teller’s performance is bad — he just doesn’t have nearly as much material to work with. Unfortunately, this role is so underwritten that it feels like it could have been filled by anyone with a pulse. Although Teller tries his best to infuse some genuine emotion into the material, there is truly no space for him to do that.
The worst part of the movie, though, is Scarlett Johansson. It’s hard to tell if her awful performance is the result of bad directing, worse writing, or a fundamental misunderstanding of the material, but she is so tremendously off-base with her performance that she elicited laughter from the audience at one of the film’s emotional climaxes. She has shown that she has great talent, especially when working with directors with a comedic bent like Coppola, Waititi, or Anderson, but she and James Gray are not a good match whatsoever.
Is Paper Tiger worth watching?
Paper Tiger is not offensively bad like James Gray’s last movie, Armageddon Time, was. However, it’s just boring and pointless. It’s not even fun like most crime dramas tend to be. A good performance from Adam Driver aside, there really isn’t much in this that makes it worth your time more than rewatching two random episodes of The Sopranos.
Paper Tiger premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, which runs May 12-23.
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