Sets of concrete warehouses and dilapidated apartments look like the color of corpses in a morgue. These characters are scum and the camera makes them appear devoid of souls. Overall he does a decent job depicting this fairly straightforward tale of money and revenge. The problems are with the film's mood and tone, which seems mixed at best or, at worst, uncertain. Some minor plot tie-ups are clever.
Porter comes up with a nice way to get back at the crooked cops without resorting to bloodshed.
But even that provides little narrative payoff. It shows Porter using his head. Next victim, please. It's harder to judge Helgeland's overall contribution to the film when we don't know for sure what aren't his scenes in the film.