3 Strikes

USA Today Staff [Not Credited]

Interspersed between the misogyny and flatulence jokes apparently left over from Pooh's co-written script for "Friday," there's a story about an ex-con.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Empty jokes hang heavy.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

It's a chilling piece of legal hysteria, and ripe for nasty farce. But Pooh plays it all for buffoonish pratfalls and fart jokes.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

This picture is just shapeless and shrill. It's disposable, forgettable and aimed at an audience that doesn't care.

Chicago Tribune John Petrakis

Most of the humor is aimed at 14-year-olds.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

This is a sloppy hash of a movie, poorly directed and plotted in a way that looks as if it were improvised on the spot.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

A criminally slow, all-but-laughless blaxploitation comedy.

The New York Times A.O.Scott

Feels like a very long late-night comedy sketch that occasionally veers beyond tastelessness toward something worse.

Los Angeles Times Eric Harrison

The bad news is that it's also vile, not to mention sophomoric and unfunny.

Variety Joe Leydon

Exuberantly rude and crude, but generally more frantic than genuinely funny.

Film.com Tom Keogh

Could have afforded to be a little loftier and still be quite funny. Instead, it's a waste.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

A dumb and sloppy movie.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

For every jab at hypocrisy in law enforcement or in the media's crime coverage...there's a scene's worth of uninflected scatology or misogyny.

LA Weekly John Patterson

Three strikes maybe, but no stars and no thumbs up (except the one way, way up its own ass).

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Reeks as badly as it sounds.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

This needlessly vulgar exercise in overuse of the n-word bills itself as a comedy. Even the outtakes over the closing credits don't live up to that.