Brooklyn's Finest

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The best things about Brooklyn's Finest are the one-on-one scenes. These are fine actors.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

The title Brooklyn's Finest is drowning in irony, of course, but Fuqua's moves are less obvious: His film is classical and gritty, his violence makes you want to duck and run.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Hawke - continuing an evolution toward stronger, more intense acting than anyone might've predicted from him 20 years ago - drives the movie. He makes Sal a jangled, edgy presence, his conscience torn several ways.

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

This isn't the kind of film that will leave audiences in awe of clever writing. Rather, it will leave them thinking how much Fuqua wanted to make a movie version of "The Wire."

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Fuqua's portrait of Brooklyn is brutal and gritty; if only his characters were as vivid.

New York Observer Sara Vilkomerson

Mr. Gere is miscast as Eddie, too naturally regal in bearing to be the screw-up he’s supposed to be, and for a broken man, he still moves with the same confidence as his younger self did in "An Officer and a Gentleman."

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

An agreeably chewy, pulpy work of old-fashioned crime cinema, a fair bit overcooked and overlong, but worth catching for its acting, its atmosphere and its action set-pieces.

Boxoffice Magazine Pete Hammond

In a brief supporting role Meg Ryan is also fine along with Brian F. O’Byrne and Will Patton. Shannon Kane is memorable as the prostitute Gere hooks up with.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

To quote Yogi Berra, it’s déjà vu all over again.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Ellen Barkin provides unexpected diversion in a madwoman cameo as the PD's brassiest brass. But otherwise the clichés keep coming.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A melodrama about three cliches in search of a bloodbath.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Melodramatic and laden with cop-thriller clichés, the story, set in one of New York's toughest precincts, is contrived and inauthentic -- and also grisly.

Washington Post John Anderson

The misapprehension about Brooklyn's Finest -- which was first shown at Sundance last year and has been heavily edited since -- is that it's a movie about police. It isn't: It's a movie about movies about police.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Each of the actors has strong moments but the relentless intensity becomes monotonous.

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

An old-style potboiler about desperate cops in dire straits that overcooks both its story and its stars.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Fine moments, images and performances stand cheek-by-jowl with the clichéd, the on-the-nose and the slightly dopey.

New York Post Kyle Smith

At one sip per cuss word, though, few viewers will still be conscious for the ending, in which the three cops finally come to the same place, each for an entirely different but equally ridiculous reason.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Holleman

In the end, audiences will be neither shaken nor stirred. Just bored and confused.

Variety John Anderson

It’s more like "Hamlet" -- the ending, at least, with enough blood and corpses to fill a housing project. The only thing missing is a point, which Fuqua circles for two hours without landing.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

What’s missing is the assurance of tone that a Lumet would provide.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Like Tango, Sal and Eddie, Mr. Fuqua and Mr. Martin dig themselves into a pulpy predicament, and then find themselves unable to do anything but shoot their way out. The movie is wounded, but it’s also too tough to kill.

Chicago Reader Cliff Doerksen

If there were any more cops on the edge in this arrhythmic, ham-fisted crime drama, Brooklyn would need a bigger edge.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Good actors and a talented director doing what they can to bring the truth to a script that's mostly bogus.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

By turning Brooklyn's Finest into a morality tale, Fuqua lets the movie slip right through his undeniably talented fingers.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

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.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Brooklyn’s Finest is mo’ wrong than right.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Here, due in large measure to a highly derivative screenplay, the director allows several reckless, unprofessional cops drive the movie into utter nonsense.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

Filled with every cop-movie convention since the invention of gunpowder and curse words, Brooklyn's Finest is three movies in one, all of which you've seen before.

Time Out New York Aaron Hillis

Antoine Fuqua’s second-rate retread of his own "Training Day" is a bloated, multithread drama concerning three burnt-out cops at the end of their seemingly unconnected ropes.

Arizona Republic Kerry Lengel

Fuqua tries to create the illusion of meaning by copycatting the style and techniques of better directors, but he can't save the naked emperor of the script.

Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore

A crowded cast of some of the finest actors in the cinema act the hell out of a gimmicky, episodic, hit-or-miss script in Brooklyn’s Finest, Antoine Fuqua’s latest attempt to relive the glories of "Training Day."

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

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.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

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