Writer/director Brian Goodman’s “What Doesn’t Kill You,” is a manly, muscular and gritty drama about, friendship, brotherhood, life priorities and loyalty. It’s the true-life story of Goodman, an ex-con, crack addict, alcoholic and loving father of two, but as much as we were moved by parts of the film, we’re not sure we were deeply affected by the whole.
Living and dying by the soulful performance of Mark Ruffalo (Goodman’s self surrogate), the acting turn is poignant, but not as remarkable as perhaps everyone in the crowd seemed to think (they went apeshit for it, maybe cause the stars were in attendance). Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke play south Boston thugs who commit nickel and dime crimes to get by. The rest is rather familiar, they fuck around for too long, Ruffalo abuses the bottle and the trust of his family (his wife played by Amanda Peet) and then the law inevitably catches up with both of them and they’re both thrown in the clink for five-plus years (one of the lawmen being a small role by Donnie Wahlberg)
This is basically the halfway point of the 100 minute film (that certainly felt 2 hours in length) point and we were left generally unfazed thus far; all we’ve got is a slightly above-average drama. However, it’s the post-prison scenes that really shine and pay off with deep emotional dividends, but this powerful last act of inner-conflict departs us all too quickly. Like macho men who keep it all inside, perhaps ‘Kill’ was too internal to connect in any way that we could really respond to.
Ruffalo’s character is forced to make a choice, survive on the outside and provide for his family or go for one more score and risk prison. It’s nice for a change to see a grim drama like this leave us with hope, and high marks go to the filmmaker for his intentions and thes sage handling of this conclusion, but but we can’t help but wonder if an entire post-prison film would have suited his strengths better and been a more rewarding film.
A true 12-stepper, while Goodman mostly spares us the recovery cliches and his story moves with subtly and grace (esp in that last act), we only wish the film was as moving as a whole as his visibly choked up response was to the standing ovation his world premiere in Toronto received. [B] We did think Alex Wurman’s score was quite good and perhaps some of the almost too restrained film would have been even less affecting without his stirring music to underscore it.
