In the end, the film is smart, fun, and wild.

| Feb 3, 2021

The film falls so hard off its course that I basically checked out after about 40 minutes.

| Original Score: C- | Sep 1, 2017

What I love most about Dope is director Famuyiwa's confidence in his audience.

| Apr 12, 2017

It's kind of facile and kind of corny, but I don't know... kind of important, too.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 10, 2016

The film's primary colour palette provides a satirical antidote to cinema's more familiar gangsta hues.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 7, 2015

What is refreshing about Dope is its cheerful irreverence.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 4, 2015

The setting and these traits - including Diggy's slippery sexuality - ensure that Dope never becomes just another laddish adventure pivoting around a bag of drugs.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 4, 2015

An authentic inner-city parable that fails to live up to its initial promise.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 3, 2015

A smart riposte to the 'hood drama stereotype. Dope is funny, stylish and mostly exuberant fun.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 3, 2015

This coming of age story set in South Central LA may not know quite what it wants to say, but it sure has fun saying it.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 3, 2015

Dope is a high-school comedy written with wit, brio and the unexpected twist of a geeky hero who wants to go to Harvard, but finds himself in [a] drug-dealing snakepit.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 3, 2015

Dope is a film that you find yourself longing to like, but the strain of disappointment takes its toll.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 3, 2015

Rather than judging his characters for turning to crime, Famuyiwa makes society the target of his anger; implying that in an unequal world, even a kid as bright as Malcolm has little chance of succeeding by honest methods alone.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 19, 2015

The movie is overly ambitious but never dull, and the ensemble cast is fun to watch.

| Jun 25, 2015

Moore gives a performance layered with energy, and Famuyiwa's direction is equally charismatic.

| Original Score: B+ | Jun 22, 2015

The film's rascally kineticism very nearly compensates for its underdeveloped ideas.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 22, 2015

Dope's biggest strength lies in its affectionate and honest portrait of a different kind of young urban blackness than we're used to seeing on movie screens.

| Jun 19, 2015

The film feels off-kilter more often than not, though it isn't without its inspired, successful moments.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 19, 2015

Even as Famuyiwa acknowledges the preconceptions that Malcolm's blackness engenders, he invites audiences to identify with the character on the basis of his relatable interests, aspirations and vulnerabilities.

| Jun 19, 2015

When so many black movie characters are simple stereotypes, it's a pleasure to see a film with real wit about the benefits and pitfalls of playing to and against those expectations.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 19, 2015