Robert Pattinson cherishes this opportunity to get grungy. He plays a small-time crook who’s obsessed with the freedom of his mentally-challenged brother (a quietly-nuanced Ben Safdie, who also co-directed with his brother). This results in an adrenaline-fused series of chases and encounters that get him deeper into a morass of chaos and calamity. Since the entire narrative pivots around Pattinson’s character, it’s crucial that he brings an anxious vitality to his role. He succeeds. The Safdie brothers are self-consciously edgy in their use of gritty imagery and a hand-held style to ramp up the intimate anarchy. In an attempt to tweak the tension even more, they’ve added a soundtrack that’s often obnoxious and weirdly incongruous. This isn’t Pattinson’s first attempt to escape the tyranny of “Twilight,” but it’s definitely his most striking.
(3 / 5)