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Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Small Crimes is a sharp, short slice of noir. A low-key crime film that that is packed with great nuanced performances. Tightly directed with a gripping screenplay that smartly straddles the razors edge of noir and absurdity. Rich characters with a marvellously self-deluded and engaging protagonist. Small Crimes ticked all the boxes for me. I loved it.

The summary states this is a black comedy, but I found nothing at all funny in it. I don't think I even cracked a smile. For me, it was a tragedy about a man released from jail determined to make amends and live a better life, but no matter what he does, it all goes wrong. Everyone is determined to undermine him, including his family.The back story seeps out a tiny bit at a time, but I still found it confusing. In the end I wasn't sure what exact crime had put him in jail. I admit I found it less than engaging, so maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention.I also couldn't figure out why, after a couple of bad incidents and threats, he didn't just leave town and start a new life elsewhere. Thomas Wolfe was right ---"You can't go home again" - --especially not a former cop who spent time in jail.If you're looking for a a fun comedy, this is not it.

The story starts off promising, with a realistic looking prison scene and the protagonist being released. He goes home to a not too goofy looking white trash family, and the set up for a good story (or narrative in today's lingo) is arranged. Problem is, the story quickly becomes confusing. The acting is good, scenery not too phony, but it's just tough to figure out what is going on.We are introduced to the protagonists parents, as well as some gnarly looking people from the past. However, the blanks are never filled in. The Mom is really down on the main guys behavior, but we are not sure why. Was he a sociopath who deserved her wrath? Or is he an OK guy with a loony mother? There are also some obnoxious "bad guy" looking and acting characters, but we never really know if they are valid when they beat up the main character, or if they are just evil. This is the sort of film that looks like they had the cash to hire some good actors and directors, then ran out of money before they could hire a writer. What they end up doing is the old "FOR THE CHILDREN" routine. He is desperately trying to find his daughters, whom he has not seen since before prison, and give them all of his money.We are suppose to believe that if a man can only have that one more meeting with his daughters, that he will be complete and fulfilled, even if he is never allowed to see them again. He explains this to his father, who believes he is not even deserving of this. What? a guy is so evil he is not even allowed to give some cash to his daughters? Yea, right. Even our society doesn't believe a guy is too evil to give money. It goes with the new Hollywood mantra "women and kids can do whatever they want, men don't matter".

There are lot of background history spare parts in this film looked more like a sequel to an earlier film but there's actually no such prequel, so we viewers got to connect the dots by ourselves, but still, it gave you the feeling of a nicely directed and well acted film, didn't give you any B movie like lousy taste. Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau used this film to show us he could really act, a total different role from what he played in "Game of Throne", and he was very very good to prove he can be an A list actor. But even so, this film are missing a lot details that should came from another earlier film.