In the last decade Denis Lehane has consolidated himself as the go-to writer when American directors look for superior crime stories. Clint Eastwood took his Mystic River to the big screen, so did Scorsese with Shutter Island and Ben Affleck with Gone, Baby, Gone. This time Lehane adapts his own short story for Michaël R. Roskam’s first English language film, the follow-up to his Oscar nominated debut ‘Bullhead’. The Belgian director successfully changes the illegal hormone trade in his country’s underworld for mean Brooklyn streets populated by small time crooks under the rule of Eastern European mafia.