Dirty 2005

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: We get it. All of you guys watched the Tarantino movies and you watched the Peckinpah movies. Enough, give us something original. Read more

Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times: As good as the leads and the supporting cast are, and as much action as gets packed into the film's relatively brief running time, none of it draws us in dramatically. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: At the end of the antiheroes' ropes, at the end of writer-director Chris Fisher's genre exercise, guns have been drawn, blood has been spilled, cops have been thwarted from going straight, and nothing has changed. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: Like the best pulp, though, it gets its hooks into you faster than you can start to wonder why you should possibly care about what happens to any of its despicable characters, and, before you know it, you've been pulled deep into its Dantean vision. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: It makes Training Day seem like a film about good citizenship, but Dirty is also a luxury vehicle for two actors whose every appearance on screen is a boon. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: This isn't a film made by someone who knows anything about cops. It's a film made by someone who's seen a lot of cop movies. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: The machinations of the plot are so murky as to be not worth following. Read more

Robert Koehler, Variety: A no-nonsense dramatic response to the LAPD Rampart scandals of the '90s. Read more

Benjamin Strong, Village Voice: [Director Fisher] appears fixated on Los Angeles as a nihilistic phantasmagoria. Read more