According to the website www.boxofficemojo.com, the Mark Ruffalo/Ethan Hawke crime drama earned just $44,872 in the theaters. Even if both its two lead stars plus the talented Amanda Peet (Identity, The Whole Nine Yards) agreed to work for free, this movie still did not come close to earning back what it cost to produce. Usually, when you’ve never heard of a film, especially one in which both its lead stars have each been nominated for an Academy Award before you see it on DVD, it’s because the movie stunk. Most of those involved with the film would rather it go unnoticed. This is probably accurate 90% of the time. What Doesn’t Kill You falls into that other 10%. The story isn’t new. We’ve seen the same story played out hundreds of times on the screen (including even a couple of movies involving Ethan Hawke that fall along those lines). There was nothing that particularly stood out in terms of the plot. Sure, the fact that it was based on a true story strengthens its cause. But still, the old man involved with crime and drugs, trying to turn around his life for his family, but struggling to do so is nothing new. So how does this movie break through that threshold and be one of those movies you remember? It was the acting.
Brian (Ruffalo – You Can Count on Me, Reservation Road) and Paulie (Hawke – Before Sunrise, Training Day) star as a pair of tight-knit brothers in their late 30’s. They know they can trust each other but are suspicious of everyone around them. Both boys were born into a life of crime. Though we never meet their father, they have been running jobs for one of their uncles since they were little boys. The older they become and the better at their craft, the more lucrative jobs they are offered. These mainly involve armed robbery. While the brothers are the ones who are risking everything, their uncle and his partners still get a cut of the profits. Neither thinks it’s fair, and the brothers have begun looking at jobs where they can reap all of the rewards.
The movie opens with a few men in ski masks attempting to rob an armed truck in broad daylight at a run-down mini-mall in a suburb of Boston. A few people in the parking lot see them, but most are running to save their own lives. However, one of those people turns out to be an off-duty cop with a gun. Paulie pulls off his mask and walks into the line of fire, firing round after round at the cop. A freeze frame stops the story, and we realize this scene will come later and this movie because, in the next scene, we are taken back to when Paulie and his brother were young boys.
After some 10-15 minutes of seeing Paulie and Brian as young boys, we meet brothers in the present-day at a local bar they frequent regularly, and their uncle owns that. While both boys are tough, and neither will back down to no one, Paulie is more unrestrained. There isn’t a job that’s too risky. He’ll just as soon whack your head along the side of a bar as he will shake your hand. He’s mean. He’s cocky. He’s irrational. He does not have many desirable traits.
On the other hand, Brian is the more sensible of the two. He has a wife and two little boys. However, he does have a drug problem. My only real fault with this movie is that we are led to believe that Brian has much more going for him and that he follows Paulie because that’s what the brothers do. Early in the movie, when we see Paulie acting out of control, we hear some of the other characters who deal with the two men that Brian needs to control Paulie better. We are most definitely given the impression that Paulie is the wild one and Brian is the one who is forced to appease the situations when they get out of control. With the movie being based upon a true story, I am glad that Brian’s addiction, specifically to cocaine, is brought into play, but it is rushed and forced. We think he is this particular character for the first 25 minutes of the movie, and then one day, he is addicted to drugs. The progression of his character in this sense is terrible. I understand the need to fit an entire story into 90 minutes, but there’s an easy way to fix this problem, and that is to have Brian’s adult character be addicted to cocaine from the very beginning of the movie. Never should we have been allowed in the 90-minute film to see Brian with his stuff together. There isn’t enough time to see him in control, slip up, and do his best to recover. Nor is there a need for it.
Despite the minor flaw in developing its lead character, What Doesn’t Kill You is a well-made and thoroughly engrossing movie. The acting of Ruffalo, Peet, and especially Hawke is top-notch. Directed by Brian Goodman, a hardcore drug addict, petty criminal, and part of the low-level organized crime scene in real life, the primary storyline in the movie revolves around Brian’s decision to change his way of life or either end up in jail or die.
The casting of Ethan Hawke as Paulie was a risky one, but he was able to pull off the thug that Goodman was hoping he could portray. Paulie is just a nasty man. Seeing Hawke in many other movies makes you wonder if he could pull off such a vile person. He does so perfectly. It isn’t too long into the film before we forget we are even watching Hawke. He influences Brian. Paulie has nothing holding him back. Brian has a family that he must think about. He loves his family but feels inadequate as a husband and a father. He also needs to learn how to channel his emotions. As a result, his family, especially his wife, is scared of him and his unpredictable ways. He’ll stay out until the wee hours of the morning doing drugs or engaging in other not-so-admirable acts. When Stacy (his wife) questions him about his whereabouts, he gets upset. He has no real job and no real skill set. Crime is the only way of life he knows.
However, his life of crime and drugs is not what he wants. The ongoing battle in the movie is how Brian can live the life he wants when he has all of these pressures around him, encouraging him to live the life he currently is leading. There is more to the story which will engage you. And while this is a theme we’ve played out repeatedly on the screen and in our novels, something about this movie will stick with you. If I had to pinpoint that thing, it is the acting. The three leads are very believable, and the side characters, including Donnie Wahlberg (Ransom, Saw II), are also very good.
Plot 8/10
Character Development 9/10
Character Chemistry 9/10
Acting 10/10
Screenplay 8.5/10
Directing 8.5/10
Cinematography 9/10 (gritty Boston…nothing spectacular about it in this one)
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 8.5/10
Universal Relevance 8.5/10
87%
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