There are so many chances for Illegal Tender to get things right that it's depressing to realize that it misses all of them.
Comment
01/28/08
Illegal Tender (2007)
13 %
Reviews Counted: 45 Fresh: 6 Rotten:39 Average Rating: 3.9/10
Consensus:
Lackluster acting and a ridiculous plot make the over-the-top Illegal Tender an unrealistic bust.
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Synopsis: After the gangsters who killed his father come to settle a score, a teenage boy and his mother turn the tables on the killers. Producer John Singleton (Four Brothers, Hustle & Flow) and writer/director Franc. Reyes (Empire) join forces to tell the story of one Latino family's quest for honor... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Rick Gonzalez, Wanda De Jesus, Dania Ramirez, Tego Calderon, Manny Perez
Reviews
An entertaining genre piece boasting a terrifically sinewy lead performance from Wanda De Jesus.
12/12/07
Top Critic
More care seems to have been taken with the cut of Gonzalez's sideburns than with the shape of the story, and the hyperbolic soundtrack does most of the work of the mise en scene.
12/03/07
You know the film is off to a paltry start when you see the rookie Rick Gonzalez attempt to strut bad-boy, awww-yeah stuff. Instead, he feels like a 21-year-old boy just going through puberty.
09/20/07
Unlike Black Snake Moan, Illegal Tender never transcends its cliches.
08/31/07
It’s hard to shake the impression that this movie has the sort of penny-pinching authenticity Quentin Tarantino’s been trying for his entire career.
08/30/07
Over-the-top melodrama that offers lots of freewheeling gunplay and action in desperate search of a believable story.
08/25/07
There's a supposed family values clause tossed into the violent mix that goes something like, the family that slays together, stays together. And with assassins closing in, mom needs her son to spend some quality time with her, mowing them all down.
08/25/07
For a film about growing up, Illegal Tender loses itself in a lot of silly juvenilia.
08/25/07
Produced by John Singleton for writer-director Franc. Reyes, this preposterous tale of crime-family values should be far more entertaining than it is.
08/24/07
Plenty of movies have combined a blazing-guns revenge story with a family dynamics drama, but Illegal Tender never gets the mixture right, lurching between bullet-happy shootouts and overwrought domestic content.
08/24/07
Illegal Tender isn't quite the mess you expect this time of year, a film that achieves a certain level of originality by reversing gender roles.
08/24/07
The real mystery here is why this slapdash semi-effort didn't go straight to video.
08/24/07
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.
08/24/07
It wants to be Scarface but makes The Pacifier look plausible by comparison. (Do real bodyguards hold their guns sideways?)
08/24/07
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