4th down and 17 yards to go for this film

Rating: 4/10 (29 January 2016)

Lots of problems with this film:
* Feels too formulaic. The director just went through the motions to get the film done without putting in extra effort to make it distinctive.
* Unnecessarily depressing until the final scene. Depressing dialogue. Worst of all - the color of scenes in South Philadelphia is filtered to produce a depressing brown tint in a misguided attempt to "set the mood".
* Weak character development. Vince and the budding romance with Janet are handled well. Johnny, who is Vince's nemesis, feels formulaic again. The bar owner Max and the other neighborhood buddies, whose names I can't even remember - that gives some indication of the weak character development - seem two dimensional at best.
The only redeeming aspect of this film is its 1970s rock soundtrack.