The story unfolds slowly, but it's a script that will hook you from the start.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 29, 2024

Carl Franklin’s neo-noir is hard-boiled and filled with moods of disillusionment in Los Angeles...

| Feb 22, 2023

Denzel Washington’s voiceover in neo-noir Devil in a Blue Dress is an equal mix of deadpan charm and wide-eyed innocence, which textures and nuances his performance.

| Oct 19, 2022

As “Devil in a Blue Dress” maneuvers its way through its taut and savvy mystery I found myself glued to its every twist and turn.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 20, 2022

I’ve long been a champion of this film, as it’s precisely the kind of push forward I like to see in a studio film. Taking old conventions and finding ways to update them is what to do when so much talent is available to accomplish something special.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jul 18, 2022

Don Cheadle steals the show whenever he is on the screen. The plot is intricate and well written, but Moseley needs to broaden his images of women.

| May 13, 2022

I will not unravel the story for you because that is half the fun of watching this kind of movie. Go see it.

| Apr 4, 2022

In Devil, folks like Easy Rawlins have long since learned to roll with the racial punches. It's precisely that kind of offhand profundity that makes the movie so memorable. Franklin's picture is effortlessly wise beneath its entertaining surface.

| Oct 27, 2021

Thanks to screenwriter and director Carl Franklin, Devil has blossomed into a compulsively watchable mystery, a redolently atmospheric period piece, and a provocative meditation on race, ambition and civics.

| Original Score: A | Oct 27, 2021

It is a smart, sly film imbued with the rich subtle tones of a mournful blues saxophone piece, worthy of comparisons to some of the best noir films of decades past.

| Oct 27, 2021

The film climaxes in a gun battle that's as painfully predictable as they come and -- as he did with the movie in general -- Mouse saves the day. His departure from the screen brakes the film to a near halt.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 27, 2021

Franklin has adapted Walter Mosley's novel of the same title with an expert, humorous hand. He makes the movie look great: It has the burnished quality of old films and a melancholy tint, too.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 27, 2021

Devil in a Blue Dress is more than just a whodunit in fancy clothes. It's a well-directed, intelligent grownup whydunit, as well as an interesting period drama. And besides, it stars Denzel Washington, who just can't seem to take a bad role.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 27, 2021

How many times have you left a theater hoping that a sequel is being planned? This critic did. Devil in a Blue Dress is a taut, ingenuous bit of Hollywood fantasy that deserves a follow-up.

| Original Score: A- | Oct 27, 2021

Carl Franklin gets it right. With an eye for atmosphere, an ear for excitement and a knack for narrative, the no-nonsense writer-director delivers the year's most delicious detective yarn.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 27, 2021

Here's hoping Rawlins other cases make it to the big screen as smoothly.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 27, 2021

In Devil in a Blue Dress, the '40s atmosphere is rich, but Franklin doesn't make the mistake of laying it on too thick. He has a fine eye for detail... Virtually every scene contains something like that -- something small yet telling.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 27, 2021

There is much to admire in this handsome film, from the sinuous movements of Tak Fujimoto's camera to the nicely understated art direction of Gary Frutkoff.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 27, 2021

[The character] Mouse is a real find, among other things because his performance is well defined by filmmaker [Carl Franklin]. [Full review in Spanish]

| Oct 27, 2021

Franklin has simplified the Byzantine plot of the book, but the McGuffin is... little more than an excuse to immerse us in Central Avenue, the main street of black life. It is in these details where Devil succeeds.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 27, 2021