Working with the cinematographer Tom Stern, Ross shoots in a style that I have come to despise.

NEWYORKER: Kids at Risk

The director, Anton Corbijn, a Dutch-born still photographer, works in a disciplined, Precisionist style dry, hard-focus color (Martin Ruhe is the cinematographer) and long stretches of silence (the occasional gunshots are as startling as a sudden crack across the kneecap).

NEWYORKER: The American