Critic Reviews

Blood Ties not only convincingly recreates its era, it seems like it could have been made then.

A couple of shootouts and chases are impressive, giving the film a little bit of momentum it sorely lacks, but it’s heartbreaking that ultimately the film doesn’t work.

While Canet's direction can't be said to be all over the place, the movie never settles into the groove it so dearly aspires to.

This hoary, hackneyed old cop-opera...is served with such relish that the fun proves infectious.

This isn’t a movie so much as a fetishist’s fever dream—a fantasia of New York crime movies from the 1970s that places the specificity of its time and place at center stage more than any actual New York crime movie from the era.

There's a heft to the proceedings that keeps us invested even when the story's various strands start to unravel.

Though it takes a long while for the many moving parts to click into place, the final minutes redeem not only a few characters but also Blood Ties itself -- not enough to make up for prior transgressions, perhaps, but enough to leave a favorable last impression.

With his English-language debut, Blood Ties, Canet takes on material of even less interest to today’s big studios, constructing something much more ambitious than a straight thriller — a sprawling familial crime drama, heavier on relationships than chases or shoot-outs.

Among the cast, the Oscar winner Cotillard acquits herself the best, bleary-eyed and bitter.

It’s all headed for a showdown, of course, and duly delivers, though Crudup and Taylor are the only ones who really seem to have a handle on the New Yawk accent.