What gives this an extra star is Ethan Hawke: there are plenty of guns blazing in this movie but the real fire comes from his powerhouse performance.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 23, 2018

All the actors are excellent in their portrayals of their characters.

| Jan 13, 2018

Each actor, including Wesley Snipes as a fresh-out-of-jail ex-con, gives one of their grittiest performances in this gripping cop drama reminiscent of 2006's The Departed and 1991's New Jack City.

| Original Score: A | Sep 11, 2017

the film's remarkable cast helps Fuqua bring his sprawling web of nastiness to another level

| Nov 13, 2013

| Original Score: D | Feb 18, 2012

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 17, 2011

| Original Score: C | May 6, 2011

Watching the dirty badges in this gritty urban tale lose their shine is absolutely riveting.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 6, 2010

The drama doesn't just move between the three cops, it prowls between them, occasionally pouncing, and the film builds up quite a bit of tension.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 16, 2010

An ugly, fatuous, macho piece of self-regarding, self-pitying nonsense about New York cops.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 10, 2010

Strong direction and acting can't compensate for an insubstantial script.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 10, 2010

Each of the three stories of cops in extremis is schematic, formulary, hokey.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 9, 2010

A boozy Irish-American cop, a sweary African-American cop and a bent Italian-American cop walk into a brothel. What do you get? The climax of the least original cop movie in the world. And that's exactly what we've got here.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 9, 2010

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.

| Apr 29, 2010

Walking out of the theatre I felt pummeled, Fuqua going out of his way to give me the bumps and bruises of a prizefighter way best their prime who climbed back into the ring for all the wrong reasons.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 12, 2010

Despite the script's too-neat constructions, this pulpy potboiler is a solid think piece and companion film to Fuqua's 2001 Oscar-winning Training Day.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 5, 2010

We may never be done with seeing cop dramas on the screen, but what we really don't need is more like this one.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 5, 2010

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

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 5, 2010

Tawdry, slick and self-consciously gritty.

| Original Score: C | Mar 5, 2010

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

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 5, 2010