The direction from the Safdie brothers is amongst the best of the year. They know when sporadic and handheld camerawork is effective and when it's appropriate to use static tripod and tracking shots. Everything is counterbalanced and weighted. They fully utilize the gorgeous cinematography of Sean Price Williams through mid and tight close ups which is soaked in red and blue neon. The use of the close up approach also allows the actor's emotions to bleed through, which tricks the audience into being wholly invested into a story about otherwise manipulative scum.

The relationship between Connie and Nick is somewhat similar to John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men; Nick is mentally unequipped, Connie feels the need to look after him and serve as protector, and they both have dreams of living on a farm, but it's much more than that. Connie has basically adopted this ideology that everything he holds dear is his brother, who is to him the embodiment of purity, which he wants so desperately to tap back into.

Connie refuses to believe his brother has any issue, and he holds deep resentment for institutional America and the bureaucratic trappings of America. He operates under the belief that you can't change the brain from the outside, so he makes an attempt to change his brother through experience. This explains why he takes his brother along to a bank robbery. The sentiment is good, but the execution is questionable; the very thing that Connie wishes to save his brother from is is own twisted doing.