Review of Welcome to the Rileys (2010) by Floyd C — 06 Mar 2011

A good film, though flawed in many ways, it still manages to grab the viewers attention and pull them into the story that unfolds. The ambiguous ending really saved the film for me and allowed it to seem much more real than the plot had up until that point.

Gandolfini and Leo are both fantastic and give performances that really won me over, I wasn't a fan of The Sapranos and only saw a few contrived episodes, so it was shocking to see how amazing Gandolfini could be when you removed a cheesy gang banger accent and gun violence from his character.

Leo has always impressed me so I wasn't shocked that she did it again. Stewart was uneven at best, but better than I expected. For the most part I had no trouble seeing her as the teen stripper she is trying to be, no joke intended.

While she has weak moments in the performance, she still holds onto the role and manages to create something watchable, which is hardly the case with some of her other work. Overall, this is an interesting film that presents some very sad situations without shoving them down the throats of the audience and making it too hard to watch, an issue that many dramas have these days.