DVD - What Doesn't Kill You

What Doesn't Kill You easily falls into a couple of categories. One would be the Boston crime drama genre that includes everything from Mystic River and The Departed to Gone Baby Gone.
What Doesn't Kill You, which comes out on DVD next week from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, was given the pink slip after a brief run in a couple of cities last winter. Along with the feature Nothing But the Truth (street date April 28, also from SPHE) What Doesn't Kill You fell the victim to its production entity Yari Company filing bankruptcy. Both of these films contain excellent performances, gripping narratives and were denied a worthy theatrical run due to circumstances beyond their control.
WDKY follows two brothers, Brian (Mark Ruffalo) and Paulie (Ethan Hawke), who grow up surrounded by petty crime in South Boston. After some character establishing scenes where they're played by younger actors as kids we witness how their adult lives are still mired in illicit behavior. Many scenes play with Boston crime landmarks we've come to recognize like the local bar where the mob boss holds court or the domestic agony Brian's wife (Amanda Peet) must go through when he doesn't come home at night.
The film pits the brothers against one another, not in a battle sense, but in the manner in which they each embrace their felonious background. It's obvious that Paulie's the tiger who will never lose his stripes as he continues embezzling local merchants and hijacking truckloads of cigarettes. Brian seems made of sterner stuff so it's a surprise when he becomes addicted to crack, a habit that threatens to tear apart his family. The film traces the effect of crime on their families and personal lives along with their eventual redemption.
Most surprising was the director's commentary (writer/director Brian Goodman and co-writer Donnie Wahlberg) where we find out that the tale is Goodman's thinly disguised autobiography.