The Yards
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
The Yards is a 2000 American crime film with Mark Wahlberg, James Caan, Joaquin Phoenix, and Charlize Theron, written and directed by James Gray. It was released in the fall of 2000, although it was shot in the spring and summer of 1998 and first due for release in fall 1999, this due to studio delays.
The setting and plot is in the commuter rail yards in New York City, in the boroughs of the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. Corporate and political corruption is commonplace in "the yards", where contractors repair railway cars for the city Transit Authority (TA). Companies wanting to win the bid sabotage rival companies' work to do so. Murder and bribes toward officials are common.
Plot
Leo Handler (Wahlberg) has just been released from prison for a car theft he didn't commit. Looking for a job, he finds his uncle Frank Olchin (Caan) who runs a railway car repair company. Joining on the job, he works with Willie (Phoenix). One night, a sabotage mission goes bad on a rival company and a rail yard supervisor is killed and a cop beaten by Leo. Leo is fingered as a suspect. He must go on the run and prove his innocence and then bring down Frank and his company.
Production
The film was based on an actual corruption scandal in the mid-1980s involving the father of the director, James Gray.
MTA New York City Transit (the city transit authority) first refused the production companies the right to film at any of its yards because it believed the film portrayed the agency in a bad light. The film was shot in Queens, in Maspeth, Elmhurst, Roosevelt Island, the Bronx, and New Jersey. The "rail yard" scenes were shot at the 207th Street shop on the New York City Transit system and at an abandoned freight yard in Brooklyn.
This is the first film to feature Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg acting together, the second film is We Own the Night, which is also directed by James Gray.
Wahlberg and Charlize Theron also appear together in the 2003 remake, The Italian Job, directed by F. Gary Gray.
