Duke keeps this tangled tale of lust and larceny bouncing with a disreputable, funloving B-movie energy that's hard to resist.

| Feb 6, 2018

With its snazzy Elmer Bernstein score, its snappy period flavor and its all-star cast doing something completely different, A Rage in Harlem should have been much more fun than it is.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 1, 2013

Jazzy and jauntily funny.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 1, 2013

As the movie becomes increasingly violent and unpleasant, the characters chase around after each other in a threadbare gangster plot about a trunk of gold.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 1, 2013

[A] flamboyant, engaging action comedy.

Full Review | Jul 1, 2013

Duke and company have been true to Himes' brash, blaspheming spirit, and that is no small thing.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 1, 2013

It's largely a cheap looking, tawdry affair, with tortuous interludes in which the humour devolves on gratuitous unpleasantness or tired old bad jokes at the expense of women.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 1, 2013

Bill Duke's Harlem has the heft of an imaginatively heightened reality; it's a great place to visit.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 1, 2013

A delightful rendering of a Chester Himes novel with a 50s setting.

| Jul 1, 2013

There's just enough atmosphere, comedy, and raw acting talent in Bill Duke's amiable gangster-caper movie, A Rage In Harlem, to make you wish the plot weren't a complete shambles.

| Original Score: C- | Sep 7, 2011

Director Bill Duke has brought a stylish sheen to A Rage in Harlem, but his mix of comedy and violence in the Chester Himes period crime tale is dubious.

| Mar 26, 2009

For all the explicit violence, the film is less gritty noir than ebullient, good-natured fantasy.

| Jun 24, 2006

It's painless, occasionally funny and has a heedlessly incomprehensible plot.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 30, 2004

What's going to happen is clear almost from the start. What matters are the funny things on the way to the forum.

| Jan 1, 2000

A Rage in Harlem is sheer jubilation.

| Jan 1, 2000

The performances from this all-star cast are absolutely wonderful.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 1, 2000

What's best in the movie is the chemistry between Whitaker and Givens, who is surprisingly effective in her first feature role.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 1, 2000