In its lesser moments, the film is overwrought and derivative but, at its best, it has a real flavour of Friedkin, Coppola and Scorsese.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2014

It starts out feeling like too many stars in search of a story, but Owen excels as a charismatic brute, and the tautly handled set pieces drag you back in for a solid payoff.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2014

A cunningly chosen soundtrack featuring the likes of Ace Frehley, Al Wilson and the Isley Brothers attempts to paper over the cracks withcool, but it's not convincing.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 14, 2014

Not quite an unimaginative crime film, not quite something better.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 14, 2014

Blood Ties has a heart of plastic. Yet there's a sturdiness to the script, and the performances are real enough to crackle.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 14, 2014

If you hear an unearthly sound during Blood Ties, it might be Sidney Lumet's ghost attempting to contact his lawyer.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 13, 2014

Canet, who showed his aptitude with the gripping Tell No One, can't bring this dull period piece to life.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 11, 2014

Seems to be the continuation of a narrative that only exists in its characters' heads.

| Mar 27, 2014

If you're an ardent admirer of pretty much anyone in the cast (OK, except Emmerich), you'll find something worthwhile here.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 21, 2014

The performers carry on - Owen is particularly good - but this bird doesn't fly.

| Original Score: C- | Mar 21, 2014

An ambitious, if disappointing, period crime drama featuring Clive Owen and Billy Crudup as warring brothers on opposite sides of the law.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 21, 2014

[A] his laborious, tonally wobbly attempt at an American crime epic.

| Mar 20, 2014

Intriguing performances, and a sense of '70s American cinema that seems to have been preserved in a lava lamp.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 20, 2014

Jame Gray and the ghost of Sidney Lumet are just along for the ride, adding a grimy layer of old-school New York scuzz to a film that's too overstuffed, fractured, and redolent with clich to every compellingly hang together.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 20, 2014

It all feels so familiar, from the beleaguered female characters, to the scene-setting anthems ("New York Groove" is well-used, admittedly), to the predictable eruptions of violence.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 20, 2014

There's a lot of sizzle with this steak, but it can't hide the fact that this particular hunk of meat has been chewed a hundred times before.

| Original Score: 3.0/5 | Mar 20, 2014

Fine actors are let down by a comatose script and wayward direction in this retro crime drama.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 20, 2014

Blood Ties comes off as a weird, misshapen version of a '70s-style thriller-almost as if it's lacking contemporary examples to follow.

| Original Score: C+ | Mar 20, 2014

The film exhibits strong character interplay and resides in an unconventional milieu, in effect turning rote material into something that feels decidedly eccentric.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 19, 2014

There's a heft to the proceedings that keeps us invested even when the story's various strands start to unravel.

| Nov 1, 2013