| 88 |
San Francisco Examiner
Classic in feel and loaded with sumptuous performances.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
Don't be misled by claims that you've seen this one already. You haven't, and you should.
|
| 80 |
Los Angeles Times
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.
|
| 78 |
Mr. Showbiz
May not have enough story to sustain its narrative momentum, but Gray just might be our best shot at a new Coppola.
|
| 75 |
Portland Oregonian
A work of incompleteness, might-have-beens and moral subtleties befitting a filmmaker named Gray.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
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.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
Visually accomplished and wonderfully acted.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
It's that ambiguity that makes the film interesting.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Shines whenever we see the performances of Phoenix and Caan.
|
| 70 |
The New York Times
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.
|
| 70 |
TV Guide
Gray doesn't condescend to his outer-borough characters and elicits pitch-perfect performances from his ensemble cast.
|
| 70 |
Slate
Most haunting of all is Caan, who has never given a performance this layered.
|
| 70 |
Village Voice
Gray's brand of film-buffery manifests itself, simply and irresistibly, as ardent, uncynical movie love.
|
| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
It almost completely falls apart in a tortuous third act and ultimately leaves us feeling strangely empty and dissatisfied.
|
| 63 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
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.
|
| 63 |
New York Daily News
With one exception (hint: Faye Dunaway), the actors seem remarkably at home in their milieu.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
By the end, we're left with a feeling of depletion rather than resolution, which may have been Gray's intention.
|
| 63 |
Charlotte Observer
Won't startle or surprise you but will satisfy your need to see good actors at work.
|
| 63 |
Baltimore Sun
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.
|
| 60 |
Dallas Observer
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.
|
| 60 |
LA Weekly
There's so much that's right in it that its blunders are all the more frustrating.
|
| 50 |
Miami Herald
The only thing the movie lacks is a pulse.
|
| 50 |
Variety
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.
|
| 50 |
Entertainment Weekly
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.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Keeps sinking into its own grimness.
|
| 50 |
Film.com
A collection of movie situations, recognizable from the films of Coppola and Scorsese, with a less obvious debt to Kazan.
|
| 50 |
Washington Post
A great director's losing battle against a goofy script.
|
| 40 |
Rolling Stone
Self-importance sinks this one like a stone.
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
Gray's direction is a languid thing, moving at roughly the speed of a maimed snail, and the cast never really gels.
|
| 30 |
Time
So muted it disappears from your view even before it recedes from your memory.
|
| 30 |
Chicago Reader
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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