Deuces Wild 2002

Jonathan Perry, Boston Globe: It's tough to tell which is in more abundant supply in this woefully hackneyed movie, directed by Scott Kalvert, about street gangs and turf wars in 1958 Brooklyn -- stale cliches, gratuitous violence, or empty machismo. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Deuces Wild is an encyclopedia of cliches that shoplifts shamelessly from farewell-to-innocence movies like The Wanderers and A Bronx Tale without cribbing any of their intelligence. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: It's the sort of thing Roger Corman would have cranked out in the 1960s to fill out the bottom half of a drive-in double bill, except Corman would have never taken himself this seriously. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Skip it. Just fill in the blanks and you too can brew the same bland, goopy mixture. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: The exploitative, clumsily staged violence overshadows everything, including most of the actors. Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Deuces Wild is a beautifully textured movie with its heart in the right place. Yet it badly wants a mature sense of esthetic balance, restraint and decorum. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: This is a movie so insecure about its capacity to excite that it churns up not one but two flagrantly fake thunderstorms to underscore the action. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: It's clear why Deuces Wild, which was shot two years ago, has been gathering dust on MGM's shelf. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Slow-motion shots of swaggering tough guys punctuate this painfully hackneyed gang drama set in late-50s Brooklyn. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: A repellent orgy of gratuitous violence and hackneyed melodrama, Deuces Wild marks a grim nadir for everyone involved. Read more

Loren King, Chicago Tribune: Maybe if the movie had left all the expensive period artifacts, and most of the hackneyed script, on the street corner and let its capable young cast loose, Deuces Wild would have offered the audience a more interesting game. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: The script from first-timers Paul Kimatian and Christopher Gambale requires Dillon to say corny things like: 'Bricks don't fall outta the sky in this neighborhood unless I'm throwin' 'em.' Tony Soprano, he ain't. Read more

Steve Daly, Entertainment Weekly: A preposterously melodramatic paean to gang-member teens in Brooklyn circa 1958. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: It's an encyclopedia of cliches, with each stale plot twist easily predicted and relentlessly foreshadowed. Read more

Manohla Dargis, L.A. Weekly: Astonishing isn't the word -- neither is incompetent, incoherent or just plain crap. Indeed, none of these words really gets at the very special type of badness that is Deuces Wild. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: It not only promotes every stereotype and invokes every cliche of Brooklyn lore, it combines them all into an insulting composite, fuses that to the chrome-and-fins of the pointless Fifties, and then -- weirdly -- pretends it's Shakespeare. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: This hackneyed throwback to greasers and rumbles steals everything and nothing from the classic gang films that came before it. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Brainless, but enjoyably over-the-top, the retro gang melodrama, Deuces Wild represents fifties teen-gang machismo in a way that borders on rough-trade homo-eroticism. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: If there's a heaven for bad movies, Deuces Wild is on its way. Read more

Robert Koehler, Variety: This is a movie that can't say no to a melodramatic opportunity, and whatever verisimilitude inspired Paul Kimatian and Christopher Gambale to write a script based on Kimatian's memories of the gangs has been utterly lost along the way. Read more

Jessica Winter, Village Voice: A flashback to a heroin casualty on a rain-soaked playground is a crucial visual aid, but any punch-drunk victim of Deuces Wild might prefer the needle to the damage done. Read more