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What Doesn't Kill You (2008)

thereviewers
May 10, 2015
2 min read

What Doesn't Kill You is a tale of two childhood friends from South Boston who turn to crime as a way to earn money. The friends eventually fall under the sway of a powerful Mob Boss but as the vicious cycle of drugs, murder and robbery consume them they try to find a way to escape before the life destroys them.

Overall Review Score

1.5 out of 10

Review

From the mean streets of...umm...South Boston (really?), where crime is ripe and the Irish Mafia run free comes What Doesn't Kill You a criminal drama based on the real life story of its Director Brain Goodman. While What Doesn't Kill You is based in reality, and had the potential of being a decent film, the plot has some fundamental holes, the characters felt underdeveloped, uncoordinated and do not really gel - which is a massive negative considering they are meant to be friends since childhood. The film effortlessly stays stale throughout and its actions seem only seem to distract the audience from what otherwise is a very mediocre film that is repetitive and feels like it was created as a rip-off of other gritty, grungy criminal dramas. Overall, What Doesn’t Kill You leaves the audience wanting more and may upset a few audience members from Southie (South Boston) as it portrays everyone, in the film, as either a criminal or someone who has their own agenda and is connected to a criminal.

Reviewer 1's score & comments:

Score: 1 out of 10

Comments:

What Doesn't Kill You is nothing special, filled with a storyline which has been told countless times before, and undoubtably better. With limited character development, early on in the film, What Doesn't Kill You then transforms into a reptition of Brian (Mark Ruffalo) and Paulie (Ethan Hawke) doing illegal jobs to pay the bills which distracts from what could have been a powerful, gritty account of two friends in South Boston.

Reviewer 2's score & comments:

Score: 2 out of 10

Comments:

I have always wondered what you would get if you mixed a mob film with cringe worthy Irish accents and two actors whom have the same style – now I know you get What Doesn’t Kill You. While the film features a human element through the families of Brian and Paulie, it repeats itself more times than Groundhog Dog and becomes stale very quickly. Its slow story coupled with its uninteresting characters offers the audience nothing new and will see them quickly losing interest. Overall, What Doesn’t Kill You will make you stronger because you will understand the duplicity of crime in South Boston and how not to make a realistic criminal drama.