I was really liking this slow, well-acted film until the rock music started blaring, of course reminding everyone of the rock music so prevalent in the 1940s. Not. I turned it off. Enough said.

Edwin Boyd (Scott Speedman) is a WWII vet driving the bus. He has Hollywood dreams. He feels trapped in his life with his wife Doreen (Kelly Reilly) and his kids. One day, he simply walks away from his job. Money problems pile up but he keeps his acting dreams. After overhearing more putdowns from his father Glover (Brian Cox), he goes rob a bank and tells his wife that he got an acting job. Detective David Rhys (William Mapother) is put on the case. After getting caught, he is unrepentant. He escapes with fellow bank robbers Lenny Jackson (Kevin Durand) and Willie 'The Clown' Jackson (Brendan Fletcher). With Val Kozak (Joseph Cross), the crew wrecks havoc across Toronto.It's a slow prodding movie in the beginning. The colors are drained from the screen. It's like a world seen through Edwin Boyd's eyes. It's a tired world that justifies his need for excitement. It's an interesting choice by director Nathan Morlando. It brings a coldness to the world. However if that's the point, I would expect more colors after he starts robbing banks. I'm just guessing anyways. Without a doubt, Speedman is doing some good work. It's a nice small Canadian drama.

Okay, the movie is based on a true story (a fad nowadays, it seems), and it most certainly has its moments. But in general the entire flick lacks some panache. If it were a Canadian province, I'd say it's (northern) Manitoba on a Tuesday night.While the main protagonist is portrayed rather decently, as well as his 'transformation' the rest of the movie is a bit stale and dry - I'd go so far to say clinically clean. Yeah, I get it, he's quite a normal guy, a victim of circumstance and all, trying to make ends meet and all. And I dig the story, but it's like eating a loaf of dry bread - you satisfy your hunger but without much joy. Personally I think the director (maybe as writer, too), tried a bit too hard to make it "arty" and forgot that a movie also should be entertaining, otherwise it's just bland ol' life. I'll keep the director in mind, maybe his next flick will be less Manitoba and more Québec.

Toronto was seemingly a nice and secure town after the World War II, and no or poor security measures in prisons and banks made gangs' ideas and plans easy to fulfill and proceed. Moreover, radios and black-and-white newspapers were not much of help in engaging co-citizens for identification and informing about criminals. Such was the surroundings where Boyd and his fellows lived their life; not as brightly as their U.S. counterparts before and then, which is probably the reason why the depiction is not that catchy and even robberies resemble asking money nicely in the presence of guns... Pre-robbery scenes are too long and only loosely connected with the remaining story, and the ending is rather awkward. The cast is uneven as well, with non-Canadians performing more versatile (Kelly Reilly as Doreen Boyd and Brian Cox as Glover); those presenting the Boyd gang seemed not catchy to me.Thus, an above-average story based on real events and characters, but not a must-see movie.