Crown and Anchor

This film is utterly absorbing, pulling viewers into a world that seems permanently overcast - as gray and discolored as a busted lip.

It's old school indie, but in our era of frenetic editing it feels fresh and new.

Michael Rowe and Matt Wells give standout performances as cousins who live two separate types of lives. A gritty and entertaining movie about the mean streets of Canada.

It's a commendable directorial debut for Andrew Rowe who allows the camera and his actors' presence to do a lot of the work. It could have easily been overdone, but his deft writing and directing did a powerful story justice.

While you can pretty much tell where Crown And Anchor is going from the first scenes, it plays out with power and purpose.

Even with its nagging, lumbering elements, Crown and Anchor succeeds in taking a hard look on the how our childhoods turn us into the misfit adults we are, and not to find answers, but to simply (and starkly) observe the effects.