NEONJames Gray may be one of our greatest contemporary novelistic directors. The director of films like The Immigrant, The Lost City of Z, and Ad Astra has always had a talent for crafting sprawling, yet intimate, epics, and his latest film, the languid crime thriller Paper Tiger, is no different. His second semi-autobiographical film after Armageddon Time, and initially envisioned as a sequel to his 2022 film, Paper Tiger is a mob movie that dances around mob violence; instead, unfolding mostly as a family drama in which the most terrifying bursts of violence are emotional ones. It can be a frustrating experience for those going in expecting some old-fashioned shoot-outs and mob intrigue, but Paper Tiger is a vastly more stirring and interesting film for it.Set in 1986 New York, Paper Tiger follows the story of two brothers, Irwin Pearl (Miles Teller), an engineer and ordinary family man, and Gary Pearl (Adam Driver), a former police officer. Nebbish and a little frumpy compared to his hotshot brother, Irwin has nevertheless built out a pretty nice life with his wife Hester (Scarlett Johansson) and their two sons Scott (Gavin Goudey) and Ben (Roman Engel). Their home, to which they invite Gary for dinner in one early opening scene, is warm and inviting, and as far away from the crime and disaster they hear about on the news. “There’s no pollution, there’s practically no crime,” someone says of their safe neighborhood in Queens. But Gary, aspiring to cash in on the booming construction along the Gowanus Canal, soon brings that far-away crime world right to their doorstep.Gary — charming, sparkling, and irresistibly magnetic in the way that Driver is in his best performances (and indeed, this may rank as an all-timer for Driver) — makes an intriguing business proposition to Irwin: how would he like to oversee the construction consulting firm he’s launching? Irwin, seduced by his brother’s promises of profit, agrees, and they go into business together. But one night, Irwin, excited about the new project, decides to bring his boys to the construction site, where they stumble upon illicit happenings. Barging into the site with the energy of a sentient pocket protector, Irwin accidentally makes himself and his family the target of the Russian mob, and nothing Gary does can reverse this sudden, violent breach of criminality into their lives.James Gray delivers a new American classic with Paper Tiger. | NEONThere’s a certain air of Greek tragedy to Paper Tiger, which makes its story of an American Dream gone awry feel all the more timeless. Irwin and Gary are so classically opposed, and Teller and Driver’s performances drive their deepening conflict — Driver is unsurprisingly phenomenal, so intimidating and beguiling all at once. But Teller gives a sneakily potent performance as an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances; turmoiled and out of his depth, but still fiercely protective of his family. It’s a terrific use of Teller, who feels like he’s found his new niche as the slightly dopey, regular guy. But while Driver and Teller are both giving career-best performances, Johansson feels slightly underserved, mostly relegated to the concerned wife with a thick New York accent, when she’s not dealing with the slightly soapy subplot of her character’s cancer diagnosis.A muted and morose crime thriller, Paper Tiger burns slowly and brightly, giving no sway to the tropes of the genre. If one were to describe the broader plot beats of Paper Tiger, it would sound pretty sparse, but Gray’s richly textured script and cinematographer Joaquín Baca-Asay’s use of shadowy frames and long tracking shots, fill up the spaces. The 35mm film grain lends the domestic scenes that timeless sheen, while giving its more action-foreward sequences a surreal quality. It culminates in one of the most gorgeous sequences of the year, a breathtaking shoot-out amongst a swaying field of tall grass that recalls Michael Mann’s Heat and Bong Joon-ho’s Oldboy. And as the blood stains the grass field (which does actually exist, right outside LaGuardia), it feels like the perfect representation of Paper Tiger’s ethos: the American Dream will flourish and grow anywhere, but at great cost.Paper Tiger is playing now in limited theaters. It expands nationwide next week.