Jacki Weaver plays the mother of all mothers who makes Ma Barker and Joan Crawford look like goody two shoes. Mother/grandmother Smurf, yes that's her name, makes any dysfunctional
family look sane compared to hers. Let's start with the fact that she
kisses her grown sons on the lips holding the kisses a bit too long,
that she can wheel and deal with the police to protect her boys. She
hasn't seen or talked to her daughter for years because of a
disagreement on a game rule. The daughter dies from an overdose and she
takes in her 17 year old grandson, J Cody, played by newcomer Jamea Frecheville, who is greeted with her lingering kiss and strokes of his cheeks.

His uncles, her sons, are all criminals with the oldest, played by Ben Mendelsohn, being an armed robber, the middle son, Sullivan Stapleton,  a big time tattooed
drug dealer while the youngest, Luke Ford, is trying to fit in by doing
whatever his older siblings ask while Sullivan suspects and harasses
him of being gay. All are being pursued by a hard nosed detective,
played by Guy Pearce, determined to get the whole family.

Where
and how J fits into the family dynamics and how the detective tries to
use him is at the base of the movie. In a sense it is a thriller and
though there is violence it is not as graphic as one would expect. Yes,
people are shot and you see the pointed gun before and the blood after but you don't see the actual
killing. There isn't one car chase but there are a couple of foot
chases.

More
than a thriller it is a family tragedy, a look behind how criminals
live and interact as sons, uncles, a grandson and his grandmother and
how an innocent girl is drawn into a world where she is out of place.

I did have a problem with the strong Aussie accents and the very complex screenplay by David Michod, who also directed the film.
All the actors do an admirable job but when Jacki Weaver is not on the
screen I lost all interest. This is more of an 'art house' film than the
neighborhood complex thriller. It's a good debut film by Michod but not good enough for me to recommend it except for Weaver's performance.