The directorial debut of longtime character actor Brian Goodman, What Doesn’t Kill You slots in as this December’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, which is to say a Northeastern-set tale of marginalized fringe-dwellers forced, by desperate circumstances, into making One Last Bad Decision.

It’s not a knock at all to say that the Lumet-ian crime drama is a sort of flip-side companion piece to movies like We Own the Night and Pride and Glory — the big similarity being the intersection and messy entanglements of family and illicit activities, and the key difference being the lack of any concrete, behind-the-badge perspective. Well acted and solidly put together, What Doesn’t Kill You may not win prizes for narrative trailblazing, but fans of both similar films and the actors involved here will no doubt take to its distressed genuineness.

At the center of the movie are two knockabout guys, Brian (Mark Ruffalo, above) and Paulie (Ethan Hawke), longtime friends who grew up as close as brothers on the gritty streets of south Boston. Living by the code of their dog-eat-dog neighborhood, their petty crimes and misdemeanors eventually bring them under the wing of local crime boss Pat Kelly (multi-hyphenate Goodman). After 15 years of errands and percentile cuts, though, they’re looking for bigger stakes. When Pat gets shipped off to prison on an old homicide rap, the pair make their move, carving out their own niche by muscling in on the business of a coke dealer friend. As Brian becomes increasingly lost in a haze of drugs, even the love he has for his wife (Amanda Peet) and two children doesn’t seem like it will be enough to redeem him.

Soon Brian and Paulie land in prison too. Brian gets out first, and tries to put his life back on track with the assistance of a neighborhood mentor who urges him to consider AA meetings. But when Paulie gets out and unveils bold plans for (the obligatory) one last heist, will underemployed Brian find the allure of old fraternal bonds and the potential of quick, easy money too much to resist?

The film’s press notes assert that it’s based on events from Goodman’s life, which may be what lends the screenplay — co-written with Paul Murray and Donnie Wahlberg, who has a small role as a cop who shadows and harasses the guys — an air of unfussy authenticity, if not necessarily deep originality. Certainly Hawke and Ruffalo have a nice rapport, and the latter seems invigorated by the chance to play something a bit meatier, angrier and more assertive. Excepting a largely procedural part in David Fincher’s Zodiac, this is Ruffalo’s best screen performance in easily four or five years.

Some of the smartest, most interesting parts of What Doesn’t Kill You, though, lie in its small, anchoring grace notes. Goodman’s selection of composer Alex Wurman proves a wise one, as the delicate, melancholic piano-and-strings theme helps underscore a forlorn, parallel socioeconomic struggle innate to the narrative, and lend the movie’s underclass struggle a certain sympathetic identification. Watching and ruminating upon What Doesn’t Kill You, it’s easy to understand the Christian maxim, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” (Yari Film Group, R, 100 minutes)