May 06, 2011 read full article

Any movie that ends on a freeze frame of Richard Gere walking stoically away from a crime scene teeming with police car lights can't be all good.

April 29, 2010 read full article

As directed by Antoine Fuqua, the film is well-acted, occasionally hair-raising but ultimately made from stale material.

March 05, 2010 read full article

Tawdry, slick and self-consciously gritty.

March 05, 2010 read full article

The problem for filmmakers trying to make this kind of movie is that they are now operating in a post-Wire world.

March 05, 2010 read full article

On second thought, Brooklyn's Finest does indeed provide a new genre twist. This must be the only cop movie ever made where a character is driven off the deep end by mold.

March 05, 2010 read full article

The movie is wounded, but it's also too tough to kill.

March 05, 2010 read full article

An old-style potboiler about desperate cops in dire straits that overcooks both its story and its stars, with Ethan Hawke, Don Cheadle and Richard Gere the main ingredients left stewing.

March 05, 2010 read full article

Whatever one may think of the overall style -- I think it's ludicrous -- Mr. Fuqua clearly wanted his film to be operatic, and so it is, in a tone-deaf way.

March 05, 2010 read full article

There's nothing particularly original here in this grime-and-grit saga, but the weak material is elevated by the cast.

March 05, 2010 read full article

Brooklyn's Finest may well have a future on cable as a drinking game. At one sip per cuss word, though, few viewers will still be conscious for the ending...

March 05, 2010 read full article

At no time will the viewer be under the impression that the performers are engaged in anything but a recycling project, regurgitating 50 years of corrupt-cop movies. Fuqua is striving for gritty street cred and instead delivers a clone.

March 05, 2010 read full article

Biblical trilogy bolstered by strong performances and a powerful message.

March 04, 2010 read full article

It's good to see Snipes back on the big screen, and the scenes he shares with Cheadle are a highlight. But there's so much unremitting pain, such a constant string of calamities in the lives of all the players, that the dreariness overshadows the story.

March 04, 2010 read full article

A melodrama about three cliches in search of a bloodbath.

March 04, 2010 read full article

Brooklyn's Finest is a cop movie so shallow, dumb, derivative and infuriating that it feels like a parody of bad cop movies.

March 04, 2010 read full article

The adventures are sometimes interesting; there are stirring, chaotic outbursts of violence. But yelling and shooting alone don't engage the imagination, and the domestic interludes verge on soap opera.

March 04, 2010 read full article

Fuqua's sucker-punch of a picture is taut noir of the first order.

March 04, 2010 read full article

While it's true that the characters here are types -- the frazzled family man, the tortured undercover agent, the just-punching-a-clock loser -- Fuqua gets some great actors to inhabit them.

March 04, 2010 read full article

Brooklyn's Finest is a billy-club sandwich: three separate cop dramas piled one on top of the other, separated by layers of dramatic cheese, and compressed until the condiments run together.

March 04, 2010 read full article