This movie gets off to a real rough start. Like, actively bad. The opening robbery is ham-fisted and heavy-handed (immediately indicating to the viewer that subtlety won't exist for the next hundred minutes), the initial exposition is appallingly clunky, and the "emotional" moments lean so heavily on sentimental scoring that it actually started to embarrass me. Like, don't even get me started on that dinner table scene, where the ghost of these boys' mother starts talking to them. Jesus Christ.
But then, once the movie becomes a slightly more straightforward crime story, things begin to improve. Not to the point of actual quality, mind you (it's all still pretty poorly written, and Mark Wahlberg's macho posturing will never not be cringe-worthy), but the increase in both action and comedy make for a passably entertaining time. Bonus points for Chiwetel Ejiofor's unhinged performance and the ridiculously convoluted plot, both of which greatly add to the strange energy of the thing.
Good premise (I'll have to check out The Sons of Katie Elder at some point), decent story, passable camaraderie, middling execution. This is the first John Singleton movie I've seen, but I can already tell he was capable of better.
Grade: B-