‘Paper Tiger’ review: Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson drive James Gray’s textured 1980s crime thriller

Dir: James Gray. US. 2026. 114mins

James Gray’s ninth feature finds him returning to the milieu of his early pictures, delivering a textured crime drama involving Russian mobsters and a dysfunctional Queens family. Paper Tiger boasts a gripping performance from Adam Driver as the slick, connected older brother of Miles Teller’s nerdy engineer, both of them involved in a local canal cleanup project that promises big money but only results in mortal danger. As is often the case with this writer-director, Gray’s film has a dim view of the American Dream but, if some of the script’s contours are familiar, Paper Tiger’s quiet intensity and growing sibling tension make it a compelling experience.

Avoids traditional action sequences in favour of brooding suspense

This will be Gray’s sixth film to play in Cannes Competition, the most recent being his 2022 coming-of-age drama Armageddon Time. Releasing through Neon in the US, Paper Tiger boasts plenty of star power, including Scarlett Johansson playing Teller’s wife, and will be heavily anticipated by arthouse crowds – although the chances of it having the box office clout of Gray’s 2019 Brad Pitt-starrer Ad Astra seem modest.

In September 1986, private security advisor and former cop Gary (Driver) tells his younger brother Irwin (Teller) about a can’t-miss business opportunity. A local oil company connected to the Russian mafia wants to develop a Queens waterway, and Gary knows that Irwin’s engineering expertise would make the brothers attractive partners for the project. The working-class Irwin, who is married to Hester (Johansson) and raising two sons, is wary of being mixed up with the mob, but Gary assures him that the payout will be exorbitant and the risks minimal.

As proven by films like Gray’s 1994 debut Little Odessa, stories about everyday characters becoming involved with gangsters rarely end happily, and so it’s little surprise that Gary and Irwin get more than they bargained for. But Gray mostly turns that narrative predictability into a sense of doomed inevitably. Collaborating with cinematographer Joaquin Baca-Asay, who lensed the filmmaker’s We Own The Night and Two Lovers, the writer-director emphasises characters and atmosphere over plot twists, crafting a classical, bittersweet study of flawed men trying to hit it big.

Driver and Teller both shine playing very different brothers. Wearing suits and exuding a gladhanding manner, Gary acts like a savvy insider – even though he’s going through a messy divorce and may not be the mover-and-shaker he pretends to be. By comparison, Irwin is a mild-mannered, cautious family man who notices how much his impressionable sons look up to their flashier uncle. (Gary can’t resist showing off the pistol he has strapped to his ankle.)

Although the brothers’ personalities are tidily diametrically opposed, it’s rewarding to watch these two actors play against type and bring nuance to their roles. Teller lingers on Irwin’s insecurity and lack of street smarts, a deficiency that may prove fatal once Irwin learns something worrying about his mafia partners. One suspects Irwin has always envied and resented his older brother’s ease in the world, and when the mobsters’s threats start coming, Irwin’s inability to know how to handle such extreme stakes is rendered poignantly.

As Gary, Driver creates a fascinating portrait of self-delusion. Early on, it becomes apparent that Gary is all talk, but the acclaimed actor keeps the viewer enthralled by the ex-cop’s competing layers of bluster and panic. Driver rarely shows us Gary’s self-doubt but, as the brothers’ deal with the Russian mafia slowly implodes, the cracks in Driver’s composed expression signal the character’s gradual realisation of the profound trouble they are in.

Johansson has a smaller canvas to work on, but her depiction of the worried Hester contains some nice moments – especially once this wife and mother notices that her eyesight is inexplicably getting blurry. The uncertainty regarding what is happening to Hester serves as an unsettling counterpoint to Gary and Irwin’s more overt life-or-death dilemma.

For most of Paper Tiger, Gray avoids traditional action sequences in favour of brooding suspense, but in its final stretch he concocts a smart, spare set piece that articulates the terror and potential violence that have been bubbling under the film’s surface.