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Deuces Wild
MGM / UA

Deuces Wild reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 16 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.4 out of 10
based on 21 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for strong violence, language, some drug content and brief sexuality

Starring Stephen Dorff, Brad Renfro, Fairuza Balk, Norman Reedus, Frankie Muniz, Balthazar Getty, Max Perlich, and Debbie Harry

Set in Brooklyn in the summer of 1958, the year the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, this is the story of a gang war in turbulent times.


GENRE(S): Romance  
WRITTEN BY: Paul Kimatian
Christopher Gambale
 
DIRECTED BY: Scott Kalvert  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: August 6, 2002 
Video: August 6, 2002 
Theatrical: May 3, 2001 
RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
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 Full Review
50
Film Threat Heather Wadowski
With a couple of plot twists and a few powerful performances, Deuces Wild is worth checking out -- but only on home video.
Read Full Review
40
TV Guide Ken Fox
Director Scott Kalvert returns to wring every last cliché out 1950s juvenile delinquent movies, without adding anything particularly fresh to the formula.
Read Full Review
38
USA Today Claudia Puig
It would appear that director Scott Kalvert never met a cliché he didn't like. No telegraphing is too obvious or simplistic for this movie.
38
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Sort of "West Side Story" set in 1958 Brooklyn -- minus the music or competent storytelling -- is clearly not dealing from anything close to a full deck.
Read Full Review
33
Entertainment Weekly Steve Daly
If you put the scripts for ''West Side Story,'' ''Mean Streets,'' and ''The Warriors'' in a blender, you might wind up with something like Deuces Wild, a preposterously melodramatic paean to gang-member teens in Brooklyn circa 1958.
Read Full Review
30
New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein
The actors labor long and hard to bring some semblance of reality to the proceedings, but the whole affair has a distinctly faux '50s feel to it.
Read Full Review
30
Chicago Reader J. R. Jones
Writer-producer Paul Kimatian was once a still photographer for Martin Scorsese, who reportedly encouraged him to write this Italian-American soap opera. Given its tired dialogue, predictable situations, and vicious street fighting, Scorsese may wish he'd kept his mouth shut.
Read Full Review
30
The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
A repellent orgy of gratuitous violence and hackneyed melodrama, Deuces Wild marks a grim nadir for everyone involved, including late cinematographer John A. Alonzo (Chinatown, Harold & Maude), who deserved a much better swan song.
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25
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
In its best moments, resembles a bad high school production of "Grease," without benefit of song.
Read Full Review
25
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Deuces Wild is the worst thing to have happened to Brooklyn since the Ice Age severed it from the mainland.
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25
Boston Globe Jonathan Perry
Just about the only things that remotely redeem this movie are the solid acting performances by the principals, who make the most of the one-dimensional material given them.
Read Full Review
25
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
At the very least, Corman would have remembered to make the movie fun.
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20
Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Would have been smart to fold before it let its hand go this far.
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20
Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Propelled not by characters but caricatures.
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10
The New York Times Stephen Holden
A film that desperately wants to be a music video circa 1983.
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10
Variety Robert Koehler
In its overwhelmingly artificial depiction of the street gangs that ruled Brooklyn's mean streets in the 1950s, Deuces Wild draws from a phony deck.
Read Full Review
10
Los Angeles Times Gene Seymour
Skip it. Just fill in the blanks and you too can brew the same bland, goopy mixture, right down to such clunker lines as "There is a Santa Claus, Ma. He just doesn't come to Brooklyn anymore."
Read Full Review
10
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
It's so uncomplicated you could go out for spaghetti after the first 10 minutes and slip back into your seat just in time for the last 10, and you wouldn't feel you'd missed a thing, save a rumble or two.
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0
LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
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.
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0
Village Voice Jessica Winter
An endless chain reaction of cartilage-crunching, organ-pulping brawls.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Matt C gave it a10:
Critics are crazy, which is why you shouldn’t listen to them. This movie was great. Good acting, good story, very entertaining. Like west side story without the dancing and singing. So don’t listen to the critics. Because I’ve learned that most of the they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

Don't watch This Movie gave it a 1:
One of the crappiest movies i've ever seen.

Jessica P. gave it a 10:
This movie was amazing. Each actor had great chemistry. I will give that the movie had its cliche points, but not enough to say it was a bad movie. How else was Scott Kalvert going to set a Brooklyn street gang without putting in some cliche point? The movie was amazing and was well spent money.

Andrew W. gave it a 10:
I've never cried so hard since John Q. SO TOUCHING! But so tight at the same time, man. Frankie Muniz was the best Vietnam Vet since Ice Cube in All About The Benjamins. What cliches? What you talking about Willis? I'm glad that they got some real tough, great New York actors to play in this movie, especially after September 12th.

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