City of Industry

John Irvin's stylish crime noir looks hip and alluring, but as it unwinds in disjointed vignettes, its lack of substance becomes alarming. Irvin, whose vast credits include Dogs of War, Raw Deal, and A Month by the Lake, twists his characters through the neon wasteland that surrounds LA in a cloned plot that is a loose concatenation of Reservoir Dogs and To Live and Die in LA.

Timothy Hutton and Harvey Keitel star as brothers who round up a motley crew of thugs to pull one last job before getting out of the business. The heist goes off without a hitch, but the ensuing criss-cross transforms the caper into a bloody game of revenge. Keitel, as always, is solid and does what he can to carry the film. The big letdown comes from Stephen Dorff as the band's resident psycho: besides playing a hateful shell of amorality, he's totally miscast. At the Copley Place and the Circle and in the suburbs.

-- Tom Meek