[Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire] is not able to inject the same complexity and religious sense into a story that ends up bordering on Manichean caricature.[Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 17, 2025

Asphalt City moves away from spiritual overtones to focus on the social and moral challenges faced by its characters. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Dec 19, 2024

...this is truly an entertaining film. It says a lot more than meets the eye, and quite frankly, it’s better than it had any right to be. Strap on your seatbelts for this one.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 26, 2024

All I see at age 44 are the clichés and the generalizations and the flashes of “style" that suggest less torment than ice cream headache.

| Jul 10, 2024

If you're willing to brave the darkness, Asphalt City offers a compelling and unforgettable experience that is bound to leave a lasting impression.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 10, 2024

This is an extremely grim drama concerning on-call NYC paramedics. There is no light in this film, just pure, dark as coal, blackness.

| Original Score: B | May 25, 2024

The long-winded Asphalt City clumsily mixes melodrama with long stretches of dullness. This turgid movie about two contrasting paramedic co-workers has a mismatched cast and an off-kilter story plagued with predictable clichés.

| May 19, 2024

This urban thriller is unsparing in replicating the bleakness.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 8, 2024

Despite the director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire throwing everything at the screen, the star is frequently sublime in a brutal and unrelenting film.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 22, 2024

…an extreme film, hard to watch at times, but with less of the self-appointed poetry of Martin Scorsese’s Bringing out the Dead and a darker, more nihilistic streak that sticks in your mind…

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 16, 2024

Despite a corny ending that fizzles with clichéd dark drama tropes, I really loved the majority of the film and its nightmarish, gruesome look at the gritty reality of paramedics navigating the chaos and violence that beats beneath America’s urban jungle.

| Apr 8, 2024

What sadly takes center stage is how much the film seems to want to make paramedic work seem as unattractive and uninspirational as possible.

| Apr 5, 2024

Grabs you by the throat about four or five times, but then you got all that other space, where we gotta talk about our feelings.

| Apr 5, 2024

I found this gloomy, gloomy, gloomy, and it made me sad because I like Tye Sheridan as an actor. This movie isn't doing him any favors.

| Apr 5, 2024

It's all just so grossly misjudged. By indulging so heavily in its unyielding misery, Sauvaire and Co only end up dehumanising those they are trying to celebrate and alienating anyone who tries to put themselves through it.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 4, 2024

It would rather wallow in a hyperviolent nightmare, then turn around and pretend its warped vision is somehow authentic. If the film was not so tiresome and exhausting, then its central lie might also cause offense.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 3, 2024

Probably the most glaring area where the film truly falls short of being this generation's "Bringing Out The Dead" is the writing. It's full of cliches and the less said about some of Michael Pitt's dialogue, the better

| Original Score: 5/10 | Apr 2, 2024

Penn’s convincing grizzled paramedic is still on the job after working 9/11. Rookie partner is finely played by Sheridan. The constant screeches and rumbles of the El train rattle shaky health of the neighborhood, emotionally portrayed by non-pro locals.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 29, 2024

It’s been so well done that you’re compelled to keep watching, but along the way Asphalt City will have you wondering just how much ugliness and trauma an audience is expected to take.

| Original Score: B | Mar 29, 2024

More concerned with establishing a gritty urban milieu than probing the people within it, this thriller comes off as shallow and formulaic rather than edgy and provocative.

| Mar 29, 2024