Illegal Tender 2007

Tasha Robinson, Chicago Tribune: Potentially compelling questions of ethnicity, privilege and societal inequities lurk in the background, but instead of addressing them, the film flounders in melodrama. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: More care seems to have been taken with the cut of Gonzalez's sideburns than with the shape of the story, and the hyperbolic soundtrack does most of the work of the mise en scene. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: For a film about growing up, Illegal Tender loses itself in a lot of silly juvenilia. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: A solid meat-and-potatoes B-movie with enough personality to spin it in unexpected directions. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: There's supposed to be an underlying message here about the value of family and giving up the bad life for respectability, but writer-director Franc Reyes is really just using it as an excuse for a standard (at best) gangland shoot-'em-up. Read more

Marc Bernardin, Entertainment Weekly: For a second, the movie has the snap of a truly surprising thriller... But then we go back to following the kid, who manages to both mope and strut along the path to manhood. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: A cohesive story is an afterthought in yet another gangster movie that pretends to denounce violence and materialism while so obviously reveling in it. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: This second-rate action drama features a mostly Latino but mostly wasted cast. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: Illegal Tender isn't quite the mess you expect this time of year, a film that achieves a certain level of originality by reversing gender roles. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: While Illegal Tender has misguided pretensions towards Serious Filmmaking, it's surprisingly likeable if you see it instead as a cheesy thriller good for a lazy Friday night. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The real mystery here is why this slapdash semi-effort didn't go straight to video. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Illegal Tender has the potential to be a better film than it is. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: Plenty of movies have combined a blazing-guns revenge story with a family dynamics drama, but Illegal Tender never gets the mixture right, lurching between bullet-happy shootouts and overwrought domestic content. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Mark Holcomb, Time Out: Read more

Joe Leydon, Variety: Pic is too muted to have much lasting impact, and remains modestly diverting only on a scene-to-scene basis. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: A throwback to 1970s blaxploitation flicks, with a Latin accent, Illegal Tender would be a brassy, sassy guilty pleasure if it were more, well, pleasurable. Read more