Dirty Pretty Things

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

The grandest and most vigorous movie he's (Frears) made in at least a decade. Like Okwe himself, it rises above its limitations, and it's just a little bit bigger than the landscape around it.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

This is a film that insinuates itself deeply into our awareness. It's that rare pulp story with something on its mind, an unnerving, socially conscious thriller with a killer sense of narrative drive.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

All told, the best ensemble cast I've seen this year.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

A crackerjack thriller, laced with labyrinthine mysteries, moral quandaries and unspeakable evil.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

It's best appraised as a strong ensemble piece, a darkly dreamy slab of social commentary and definitely one of the year's best films.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

This film has a conquering spirit. The dankness is replaced by an optimistic blast of sunlight at the end, a contrast to the earlier lighting dimmed with human misery. Mr. Frears blasts away the blight, though he doesn't have to work to restore Okwe's dignity. It shines through from the start.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

An impressive mix of entertainment and social comment, spinning a great mystery even as it confronts an ugly world.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

One of the year's best films.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Once again, Frears -- who has enjoyed a glorious run of diverse, good-quality movies, from "My Beautiful Laundrette" to "High Fidelity" -- has crafted a unique gem.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The strength of the thriller genre is that it provides stories with built-in energy and structure. The weakness is that thrillers often seem to follow foreseeable formulas. Frears and his writer, Steve Knight, use the power of the thriller and avoid the weaknesses in giving us, really, two movies for the price of one.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It's a dark and revealing movie, and, while the ending may not be upbeat enough for those expecting mainstream fare, it offers a measure of hope and a catharsis.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's an exciting but brainy, cross-cultural thriller about modern London and life in a contemporary urban pressure cooker, and it depends more on plot, character and atmosphere than it does on chases and gunfire.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Director Stephen Frears...drops down to the underclass in "DPT," examining the ways in which educated illegals fight off despair, poverty and extradition.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Finally, a real movie!

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The poetic justice strains the verisimilitude of a film otherwise grounded in a tough reality, but there is a guilty satisfaction to it all.

Wall Street Journal Collin Levey

The thriller aspect of this work, happily, doesn't overshadow its real beauty -- its stark portrayal of the nightmare despair of aliens, hunted, on edge, prepared to risk all for a new start.

Variety David Stratton

An intelligent and extremely well-made romantic drama that tells an intriguing story with economy and insight.

Slate David Edelstein

The whole movie is like that: gleaming, but with a whiff of the charnel house. Dirty Pretty Things doesn't quite cut to the bone, but it gets as far as a couple of vital organs.

Newsweek David Ansen

Steven Knight’s smart, if overly plotted, script delivers social insights tautly wrapped in genre thrills.

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

A romance wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a tale of redemption or something like that. To be honest, I'm not sure what the film really is as far as a genre goes. One thing is for sure, it's a damn fine film.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

Part urban thriller, part unorthodox love story, this well-acted portrayal of the shadowy realm occupied by London's illegal immigrants is buoyed by stinging social commentary and a surprising twist of intelligent humor.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Fueled by gripping suspense, dark humor and outraged humanity, the film is a modern horror story that means to shake you, and does.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

This is the meatiest role Tautou has had post-''Amelie'' and she drops the zombie-pixie act for once, giving us a character who's caught in a daily dance between propriety and abandon, and who can only dance faster as desperation sets in.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

By its third act, Okwe has found his solution and Dirty Pretty Things comes across as both clever but a little pat, another British drama about the misfits who pool their resources to defy the oppressive system, though it does not precisely leave a warm glow.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The result is an unwieldy but still compelling look at the plight of immigrants wrapped in a thriller about black-market organ transplants.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Frears has directed a surprisingly sturdy hybrid of thriller and social melodrama, even if the thrills turn ludicrous and the social critique grows a little pat.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Slick and sober, fiercely contemporary, and rigged by a fail-safe three-act structure, Dirty Pretty Things nimbly straddles the line between realism and popcorn pop, but it knows which side its bread is buttered on.

The New Yorker David Denby

We are entertained, but we see this squalid world clearly. The great cinematographer Chris Menges keeps the images cool and crisp. [15 September 2003, p.100]

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

A fascinating sight to behold.

USA Today Mike Clark

Things will not be a big concession-stand movie because the floating heart is our introduction to a cottage industry we hope won't catch on. It is dirtier than pretty, yet Frears finds beauty in the telling.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Frears story's grotesque subject offers an opportunity for a sick audience payoff that is more "Death Wish" than social commentary, and he takes it. It works -- you'll laugh! you'll gulp! -- but it's cheap.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Ejiofor's subtle, infinitely humane performance is the invisible glue that holds everything together and Chris Menges's darkly shimmering cinematography lends the story a gritty, coolly seductive glamour.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Though worth seeing, should be better than it is.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Jammed with banner-ready political rhetoric, and the relentlessness of the lectures is wearying. The plot, on the other hand, is a standard contraption built on enduring urban anxieties and involving a nasty hotel-room trade.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Essentially a TV movie souped up by the divinely skittish cinematography of Chris Menges, the film suffers from a screenplay full of labored attempts at wit by Steven Knight, and characters who barely make it off the page alive.