Edwin Boyd is not your ordinary folk hero. The story of this notorious Canadian bank robber is rooted in loss, trauma and frustra­tion — elements that all rise to the surface in Scott Speedman’s charismatic performance as our eponymous antihero, the man who became postwar Toronto’s public enemy number one.
 

The bulk of this vibrant first feature from writer/director Nathan Morlando spans seven years, from Eddie’s return from duty in the Second World War to his ultimate arrest in 1952. Dismayed by public indif­ference toward veterans, humiliated by his inability to provide for his children and his wife Doreen (Kelly Reilly), and seeing only disappointment in the face of his policeman father (Brian Cox), Eddie resorts to unlaw­ful activity. But what start as friendly and flirtatious bank robberies, performed by a dandy wearing thick makeup, evolve over time — and with experience — into a career not unlike that of Clyde Barrow or Butch Cassidy, in which crime and love mix with explosive results.
 

Eddie winds up the head of the Boyd Gang, a group of small-time criminals he meets in prison. They include Lenny Jackson (Kevin Durand), a resourceful thug whose prosthetic foot conceals tiny hacksaw blades that eventually enable him and Eddie to break out of jail. Eddie is also deeply in love with his wife. A model mother, Doreen is devoted to her husband, and is perhaps the only person fully able to understand his need to feel accomplished and gratified.
 

Morlando lovingly evokes Eddie’s world in this brisk-paced and energetic film that is at times humorous and sweet, at others vio­lent and tragic. Overall, Edwin Boyd instills a compelling sense of how a career in crime can find its roots in a refusal to accept a life of misery and failure. Martin Bilodeau