Piñero
Metascore
40 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 17 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 17
  3. Negative: 5 out of 17
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  1. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Kimberley Jones
    40
    Not a man, but the romanticizing of him. A lot of jive-shit.
  2. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Loren King
    75
    It wisely lets us hear Pinero's words for ourselves, and in the end, they echo louder than the images that accompany them.
  3. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Michael Dequina
    40
    Bratt's fast-talking, all-attitude interpretation is showboating without soul -- which can be said of the entire movie.
  4. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Steven Mikulan
    40
    The main drawback is Claudio Chea's vertiginous camera work -- and the print's continual alternations between black-and-white and color add nothing but a distracting ornamentation.
  5. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    80
    Ichaso moves easily between a black-and-white past and a full-color present, maintaining a pace as buoyant and rhythmic as the beat of the infectious Latin music that accompanies the film.
  6. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    50
    A biopic that is as messy as the life it details.
    All this critic's reviews
  7. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: Andy Klein
    50
    What Ichaso does do is take us on a dizzying, constantly moving ride through an exciting decade in the blossoming of "Nuyorican" culture with its most flamboyant figure as our focus.
  8. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    30
    There's a strong movie in this life, but writer-director Leon Ichaso ("Sugar Hill") hasn't found it.
  9. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Charles Taylor
    20
    A sustained piece of showboating mythmaking, and something of a snow job.
  10. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Bob Graham
    100
    A daring, free-spirited and ultimately moving performance by Benjamin Bratt lies at the beating heart of Pinero.
  11. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    58
    Piñero never comes close to convincing us that this guy is worth a movie at all.
  12. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    70
    It is a career-defining performance that could catapult the 37-year-old actor beyond bland romantic leads and into the kinds of juicy anti-heroic parts once gobbled up by Mr. Hoffman and Robert De Niro.
  13. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    60
    Ichaso tells Piñero's story through a sometimes disorienting series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, fracturing the time frame to suit the film's internal rhythms, rather than any coherent time line.
  14. Variety
    Reviewed by: Dennis Harvey
    20
    Hectic, sketchy and finally dull.
  15. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    30
    At its most indulgent and posturing, Piñero plays like a movie the man himself might've made, between scores.
  16. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    40
    A well-intentioned, reverential but unenlightening portrait. It pays tribute to the artist. Yet it doesn't scrutinize him.
  17. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Rita Kempley
    30
    This character was an abusive swine. Perhaps it would be best to let his art stand on its own.

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