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The Yards is
about ex-convict Leo (Mark Wahlberg) who, upon his release from having served a 16-month term, wants nothing more than to fit back into society, become a productive citizen
and take care of his ailing mother. He starts to work as a machinist for his step uncle Frank (James Caan), but gets in trouble again on the first night of work with Willie
(Joaquin Phoenix) who runs a crew for Frank. Withdrawn, sad, and not terribly smart, Leo is further pushed into the mess as he clings to misplaced loyalty far longer than
common sense or conscience would dictate.
The movie's setting–the New York yards where mass transit trains are made up and
repaired–provides a backdrop of cold and gloom for the story. A power cast of award-winning actors do justice to the many poignant and excellently cinematographed close-up
shots, making an otherwise visually boring film come to life with gut level emoting. While The Yards may be about crime, it is not a crime movie where good is
simplistically pitted against evil in a predictable moral plot. Unlike most crime movies, it doesn't rely on unnecessary footages of car chases, choreography and fireworks.
Instead, it explores the drama in human reactions as it goes inside the structure of corruption, betrayal and conflicting loyalties. All throughout the movie, the viewer may
not be able to pinpoint a real hero or a real villain–he can only guess as he is led through a maze that presents a discovery at every turn.
There is ample food for thought here as the viewer rides along with the story. The question of
work ethics comes into play and engages the mind that closely follows the dialogue. The character of Frank, for example, poses a riddle to the viewer: he is not an altogether
evil man. He works on both sides of the law, and when he breaks the law, he does so because in his business, those who do not break the law cannot stay in business. He is a
reasonable man who works within an unclean system that everyone, even the police, accepts. The system was already corrupt when he found it and he is resigned to the inevitable
fact that it will still be corrupt when he leaves it. His concern is: he has to make a living for his family. It is an ambiguous situation and therein lies the power of
The Yards to absorb the thinking viewer. It exposes how trusted public servants (like judges and elected officials) work at arms' length with characters they know to be
lawbreakers.
The rather sympathetic treatment of supposedly bad guy Frank might be due to the fact that the
character was somewhat inspired by director Gray's own father who got involved in a similar scandal that led to the 1986 suicide of Donald Manes, borough president of Queens,
New York. Manes stabbed himself when he was uncovered to have taken payoffs. Projecting your father on film as the bad guy naturally alters (if not romanticizes) the
character. But that in itself raises several questions for viewers to discuss: If your father uses bribery to stay in business to feed, clothe and educate you, does that make
him less of a criminal? Would you choose to continue operating within a rotten system when you can find a new line of work? Tough questions, indeed, for followers of Jesus to
answer.
(Date Reviewed: February 2, 2001)
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