by Alex Billington
May 26, 2026
This is the story of two brothers in the big city, and their undoing thanks to their ambition to make some extra money on top. James Gray’s latest film is a New York City crime thriller titled Paper Tiger, which just premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival in the Main Competition vying for the Palme d’Or. It didn’t take home a single award at the end of the festival, though that doesn’t really mean it isn’t a worthwhile film anyway. It’s a low key thriller that never reaches a boil, bordering on being pure drama throughout, though it’s bolstered by an undercurrent of tension simmering beneath the entire narrative. It’s a solid film overall that is enhanced by Adam Driver’s terrific performance as the knows-everyone-businessman brother Gary. And it’s worth watching just for Driver alone to get a glimpse at how complex & composed his character is. Though far from being a truly terrific new feature, James Gray continues to show that he’s best at telling low key, refined, focused stories about multifaceted individuals caught up in sticky situations they can’t control.
Paper Tiger is written and directed and produced by American filmmaker James Gray, his 9th feature film so far after Armageddon Time in 2022. Gray has been making crime dramas his entire career, starting with Little Odessa back in 1994. This new film takes him back to those roots with another story about the Russian mafia in New York. Set in the 1980s, this story focuses on the Pearl family – Miles Teller as Irwin Pearl, an engineer, Gary’s younger brother; Scarlett Johansson as Hester Pearl, Irwin’s wife; and their two teenage boys Scott (Gavin Goudey) and Ben (Roman Engel). Irwin’s brother is Gary, played by Adam Driver, a former cop for the city who now works as fixer and businessman making specific deals all around the city with various companies. One day he comes over to Irwin’s home with a pitch: they will create an engineering middleman company to help sort out the paperwork for businesses located along the very polluted Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. However, it turns out many of these businesses are Russian mafia owned places dumping oil and doing other shady things. At first it seems like everything is going to work out, until Irwin gets a bit too excited about it and tries to show his kids where their dad’s new gig is operating, ruffling the feathers of the Russians who get upset and go after both Gary and Irwin, and his family. Both of them end up running around frantic trying to figure out how to appease these unrelenting mobsters before they cause more harm.
The film is a grainy, grimy 80s crime thriller about a family that gets in over their head. One the most “they don’t make ’em like they used to” films to debut recently – doesn’t fit in the 2020s at all. Paper Tiger feels right out of the 90s with its old school style and low key “not much happens” vibes. It had me fully caught up in following the suspenseful story of what will happen next. Will they outsmart them? Will the Russian mafia retaliate? Will Gary pull off some sneaky deal? It’s a well-made film though flawed – with a number of unpolished aspects, including defining the Pearl family better, and a subplot involving Hester discovering she has cancer that doesn’t sync with the rest of the story. However, I’m entirely impressed by Adam Driver – because once you understand the nature of his performance as Gary and the subtle layers to his choices, it becomes so much more meaningful. He’s always so good in any role and this one really seems substantial in terms of what he’s pulling off with this character in the context of the meaning of this whole story. It’s a tale of brothers and what they will do for each other, and about the decisions that families make. It’s about how to maintain your cool when things are going sideways. A slick character study wrapped up within a thriller.
Alex’s Cannes 2026 Rating: 7.5 out of 10
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