The Yards is not exhilarating like some crime movies, or vibrant with energy like others. It exists in a morose middle ground, chosen by James Gray, deliberately or not, because this is how his own memories feel. When indictments come down in political scandals, the defendants often say they were only trying to operate within the system. So they were. Their other choice was to find a new line of work. The system endures. If you don’t take the payoff, someone else will. Fairly nice people can live in this shadowland. Sometimes things go wrong. — Roger Ebert