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The Yards
Metascore
58 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 31 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 31
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 31
  3. Negative: 2 out of 31
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  1. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: G. Allen Johnson
    88
    Classic in feel and loaded with sumptuous performances.
  2. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Peter Brunette
    80
    Don't be misled by claims that you've seen this one already. You haven't, and you should.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    80
    So strong and secure in its remorseless movement that you buy into what's happening, its people so firmly gripped in the vise of fate and their own character flaws.
  4. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    78
    May not have enough story to sustain its narrative momentum, but Gray just might be our best shot at a new Coppola.
  5. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    It's that ambiguity that makes the film interesting.
  6. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    75
    Shines whenever we see the performances of Phoenix and Caan.
  7. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    75
    The cast is just right for this mini-"Godfather" yarn, and Gray's filmmaking is generally on target even if it does tend to dawdle along the way.
  8. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Foreman
    75
    Visually accomplished and wonderfully acted.
  9. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    75
    A work of incompleteness, might-have-beens and moral subtleties befitting a filmmaker named Gray.
  10. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    70
    Gray doesn't condescend to his outer-borough characters and elicits pitch-perfect performances from his ensemble cast.
  11. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Dennis Lim
    70
    Gray's brand of film-buffery manifests itself, simply and irresistibly, as ardent, uncynical movie love.
  12. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    70
    For all its incongruities, The Yards is a serious film that strives for a moral complexity and a textural density rarely found in contemporary dramas.
  13. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    70
    Most haunting of all is Caan, who has never given a performance this layered.
  14. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    67
    It almost completely falls apart in a tortuous third act and ultimately leaves us feeling strangely empty and dissatisfied.
  15. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    63
    With one exception (hint: Faye Dunaway), the actors seem remarkably at home in their milieu.
  16. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Desmond Ryan
    63
    Instead of the usual contrast of black and white, The Yards offers a vivid palette of grays, and it's a far more rewarding color scheme for a movie.
  17. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    63
    By the end, we're left with a feeling of depletion rather than resolution, which may have been Gray's intention.
  18. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Chris Kaltenbach
    63
    Caan is so good as a man who watches helplessly as everything he's worked for crumbles around him, that he steals the picture from both Wahlberg and Phoenix, the ostensible stars.
  19. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    63
    Won't startle or surprise you but will satisfy your need to see good actors at work.
  20. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    60
    There's so much that's right in it that its blunders are all the more frustrating.
  21. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Bill Gallo
    60
    For Caan's shtick alone, The Yards is worthwhile, but we may also be witnessing the emergence, in Gray, of a young filmmaker who's just starting to find the range.
  22. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    50
    The only thing the movie lacks is a pulse.
  23. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Bob Graham
    50
    Keeps sinking into its own grimness.
  24. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    50
    A drama about corruption in the city's transit system that's not only hard boiled but also dipped in egg batter dialogue and deep fried.
  25. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Robert Horton
    50
    A collection of movie situations, recognizable from the films of Coppola and Scorsese, with a less obvious debt to Kazan.
  26. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    50
    Entombs its characters so thoroughly in a prison of palpably predestined tragedy that one knows from the outset that the very worst that can happen most certainly will.
  27. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    50
    A great director's losing battle against a goofy script.
  28. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    40
    Gray's direction is a languid thing, moving at roughly the speed of a maimed snail, and the cast never really gels.
  29. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    40
    Self-importance sinks this one like a stone.
    All this critic's reviews
  30. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    30
    So muted it disappears from your view even before it recedes from your memory.
  31. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    30
    One more sluggish, artfully framed thriller with Rembrandt lighting set in a New York borough--a kind of picture that's awfully hard to do in a fresh manner.
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