| 70 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Quite an entertaining genre piece boasting a terrifically sinewy lead performance from Wanda De Jesus.
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| 63 |
Boston Globe
The movie's a genuine oddity: a Latino action drama with one foot in bullet-spitting genre flicks -- '70s blaxploitation and '80s coke-kingpin films are the primary reference points -- and the other in raggedly personal family melodrama.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Sun-Times
As it is, Illegal Tender works as a melodrama, and it benefits enormously from the performance of Wanda DeJesus.
|
| 60 |
Variety
Too muted to have much lasting impact, and remains modestly diverting only on a scene-to-scene basis. There's no quotable dialogue, no standout action sequence, no flashy supporting performances -- in short, nothing to lift Illegal Tender from the level of competent but inconsequential B-movie.
|
| 58 |
Entertainment Weekly
Marc Bernardin
For a second, the movie has the snap of a truly surprising thriller -- like a Hispanic "Kill Bill" -- about an aging lioness willing to kill to protect her cub.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
Pistol-packing De Jesus evokes Pam Grier in spots but certainly holds her own.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Never gets the mixture right, lurching between bullet-happy shootouts and overwrought domestic content.
|
| 50 |
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.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
This tale of crime and punishment is wrapped in a veneer of flashy attitude but founders on mundane details.
|
| 50 |
New York Daily News
What kind of movie is misdirected, poorly acted, preposterously written--and still wholly entertaining? A B-movie, of course. 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.
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| 42 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
For a film about growing up, Illegal Tender loses itself in a lot of silly juvenilia.
|
| 42 |
Baltimore Sun
Rafer Guzman
The movie's one bright spot is Gonzalez, a refreshingly natural young actor who needs to get out of B-movies.
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
Never transcends its clichés.
|
| 40 |
LA Weekly
Robert Wilonsky
We’re too bored to have fun.
|
| 38 |
Chicago Tribune
Tasha Robinson
Illegal Tender echoes "A History of Violence," another gritty film that explores escaping a criminal past. But the vast vapidity behind Illegal Tender's ill-conceived story line is far harder to overcome.
|
| 30 |
The New York Times
Luridly earnest and laughably immoral, Illegal Tender is an old genre movie with a new look. Call it Hispanixploitation.
|
| 25 |
Miami Herald
Illegal Tender is the sort of crime movie in which nothing, not one detail, has been observed from real life; it's composed entirely of fantasies and falsehoods lifted from bad movies and hip-hop videos.
|
| 0 |
New York Post
The real mystery here is why this slapdash semi-effort didn't go straight to video.
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