| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 28, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Nov 5, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 3, 2002

I'm going to give it a marginal thumbs up. I liked it just enough.

Full Review | Oct 29, 2002

This familiar rise-and-fall tale is long on glamour and short on larger moralistic consequences, though it's told with sharp ears and eyes for the tenor of the times.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 25, 2002

Needed a little less bling-bling and a lot more romance.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 25, 2002

Rings true, from the smooth dialogue to the unaffected performances of the central actors.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 25, 2002

A fake street drama that keeps telling you things instead of showing them.

| Original Score: C+ | Oct 25, 2002

It does offer an uncommon thoughtfulness that makes it far less exploitative or sensationalistic than most examples of its genre.

Full Review | Oct 25, 2002

The movie is ambitious, has good energy and is well-acted, but tells a familiar story in a familiar way.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 25, 2002

In this bird's-eye-view of the drug trade circa 1986, there's something missing: the buyers.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 25, 2002

Instead of a hyperbolic beat-charged urban western, it's an unpretentious, sociologically pointed slice of life.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 24, 2002

Performances are strong, especially that of Mr. Wood.

| Original Score: C+ | Oct 24, 2002

It's actually too sincere -- the crime movie equivalent of a chick flick.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 24, 2002

Though filmed partly in Canada, Paid in Full has clever ways of capturing inner-city life during the Reagan years.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 24, 2002

It's good, hard-edged stuff, violent and a bit exploitative but also nicely done, morally alert and street-smart.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 24, 2002

Set in a 1986 Harlem that doesn't look much like anywhere in New York.

Full Review | Oct 22, 2002

Paid in Full is remarkably engaging despite being noticeably derivative of Goodfellas and at least a half dozen other trouble-in-the-ghetto flicks.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 22, 2002