Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster (2012)

That was an excellent one.

Sadly Over-hyped

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

I was really liking this slow, well-acted film until the rock music started blaring, of course reminding everyone of the rock music so prevalent in the 1940s. Not. I turned it off. Enough said.

"Citizen Gangster" from 2011 is an interesting film directed by a first-timer, Nathan Morlando, who also wrote the script. He does an excellent job telling this story.Set in Canada, Eddie Boyd (Scott Speedman) is a good-looking war hero with a wife (Kelly Reilly) and two children. He's a bus driver, and his wife works as well. One day, after helping a veteran in a wheelchair onto his bus, Eddie walks away from his job. He heads to Lorne Greene's (yes - the star of Bonanza) acting school seeking film work. Not having the money for the classes, unable to support his family, and about to lose his home, Eddie decides to become a bank robber. He disguises himself with makeup and successfully robs a number of banks, all the time telling his wife he has acting jobs. He becomes a folk hero and revels in his publicity.Finally, he is caught and sent to prison. There he meets other inmates Lenny Jackson (Kevin Durand), Willie 'The Clown' Jackson (Brendan Fletcher), and Val Kozak (Joseph Cross) who have a plan to escape, which they do, becoming The Boyd Gang.Fascinating story, all the more fascinating because it's true. There is actual footage of Loren Greene on the Canadian network's first broadcast talking about the search for Eddie. Scott Speedman does an excellent job of portraying Eddie - in the beginning, he looks like the '40s-50s actor Guy Madison, very handsome. He definitely captures Eddie's desire for fame and his lack of interest in the consequences on his family, though he claims he's doing it all for them. Well, not really. Reilly as his long- suffering wife Doreen who can't help but love him is wonderful, as is Brian Cox as Eddie's ex-police officer father, who warned Doreen about his son.What happens to Eddie later on is amazing - the film covers some of it but by no means all. I suggest the Wikipedia article for some really surprising facts.A dark film about a post-war dark world. Morlando's first time effort should be applauded.

Okay, the movie is based on a true story (a fad nowadays, it seems), and it most certainly has its moments. But in general the entire flick lacks some panache. If it were a Canadian province, I'd say it's (northern) Manitoba on a Tuesday night.While the main protagonist is portrayed rather decently, as well as his 'transformation' the rest of the movie is a bit stale and dry - I'd go so far to say clinically clean. Yeah, I get it, he's quite a normal guy, a victim of circumstance and all, trying to make ends meet and all. And I dig the story, but it's like eating a loaf of dry bread - you satisfy your hunger but without much joy. Personally I think the director (maybe as writer, too), tried a bit too hard to make it "arty" and forgot that a movie also should be entertaining, otherwise it's just bland ol' life. I'll keep the director in mind, maybe his next flick will be less Manitoba and more Québec.

While this is not a Hollywood-style, over-the-top, cars-exploding, blood- spattering, machine-guns-blazing standard gangster film, it's worth anyone's time, largely because it says so much about what effect a life of crime has on the family life of the criminal. Boyd's wife gets lots of attention in this film, and we see clearly the terrible situation she and her children are put in because of her husband's career as a bank robber. She doesn't seem to be complicit, other than by not abandoning him. This focus is only possible, of course, because Boyd started out as an ordinary man trying to provide for his family, not as some delinquent street tough who was headed for the criminal life from his earliest years. It's the family connection that gives this film some emotional depth beyond the usual gangster narrative. When Boyd gets out of jail for the last time and tries to get his wife to join him again, and she has to refuse him because she is re-married and "doing good" for herself and their children, the story achieves real poignancy.Kevin Durand makes a terrific tough guy, someone you would not want to meet in a dark alley.A check with wikipedia shows some places where the script deviates from history, but nothing very outrageous, despite the suggestion of a previous reviewer here. For Canadians this story has special interest. Edwin Alonzo Boyd was one of the country's most famous and colourful (with a 'u') criminals.