In his feature film debut, director Nathan Morlando chose to tell the disturbing life-story of the notorious Canadian bank robber from the 1940s and 1950s, set in post-war Toronto starring Scott Speedman.
Mostly shot in Sault Ste-Marie, the film is quite effective at portraying the troubling post-war years that Edwin Boyd wasn’t able to adjust to after returning from World War II duty. It would seem that being a part of stopping the spread of Nazism should come with some form of entitlement. In the dreary Toronto of the 1940s it does not. And Edwin Boyd is soon disillusioned.
Scott Speedman is Edwin Boyd. He plays this anti-hero caught in the allure of his own rising fame perfectly and without veneer. Edwin Boyd is a wannabe actor who can’t afford the fees for the Lorne Greene Acting School. After some unproductive meandering, he sets out to feed his family by donning makeup and playing another kind of role–public enemy number one.
The film chronicles how he became the head of the Boyd gang alongside small-time criminals he met in prison. Though this is a fast-paced bank heist flick, the tone is textured and unglamorous. It’s a distilled and compassionate portrait of a man who soon finds himself increasingly gratified by the attention he gets. The film is clear on this point. Boyd was drawn to fame and the excited press gave him the “moral validation” his criminal persona craved.
Even if his choices are far from enlightened, Boyd thrives on respect and gratification. And no one knows that more than his wife Doreen played wonderfully by Kelly Reilly. Especially during her radio address, publicly urging her husband to turn himself in.
This is where the film is at its unglamorous best. Never saccharine, Reilly plays the wife who soon finds herself in the conundrum of standing by the man she loves and leaving him to protect her children from cops invading their bedroom at gunpoint.
All to Nathan Morlando’s Credit.
This is not a good Canadian film. This is a very good film. Period.