FILM / Critical Round-Up

NIGHT AND THE CITY

'This should have been electrifying. Yet something has gone wrong . . . for all its energy, it seems airless, old-fashioned.' Geoff Brown, Times

'We sense the film-maker's hands operating the machinery. . . This is a New York you could order up by telephone. Dial M for mean streets and you would get this instant, special-delivery, heels-on-wheels Manhattan.' Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

'What it lacks is that final touch to transform it from the above-average into the exceptional.' Derek Malcolm, Guardian

DEEP COVER

'A tendency to theatricality sometimes undermines its attempt at the grittiest of realism. It doesn't escape the studied effect or the overwritten verbal exchange.' Derek Malcolm, Guardian

'Grim, violent, occasionally telling in its insights. . . Duke's direction is impressively claustrophobic, with Fishburne's iced-over performance well matched by Goldblum's hot-to-trot corruptibility.' Hugo Davenport, Daily Telegraph

'For its highly-charged style, a small bouquet to director Bill Duke.' Geoff Brown, Times