LUV Reviews

Common more than pulls off the tough task in a revelatory, award-worthy turn.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

if interpreted as "a fable" you may be able to shrug it off.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10

Candis demonstrates a practiced hand in his direction, keeping the pace brisk and the tension taut. But there's no getting around the meandering and highly formulaic script.

Full Review | Original Score: C+

Clearly inspired by the television show "The Wire," newbie writer-director Sheldon Candis stumbles through crime drama clichés in a prosaic coming-of-age movie that fails to connect on any level.

Full Review | Original Score: D

It's got the heart and soul, but not the brain.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Gritty drama follows young boy exposed to violence, drugs.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

An attempt to do something new in the field of boyz-n-the-hood relationship dramas.

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Director-co-writer Sheldon Candis stretches a lot of the time, a romantic story seems to have been cut drastically, and the film's climax is far too typical.

Full Review | Original Score: C+

Even the boarded-up row houses look romantic.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

A sometimes taut and occasionally preposterous day in the life of an 11-year-old accompanying his uncle on business in Baltimore.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

A hackneyed, from-the-streets Sundance drama that would be mostly forgettable if not for the performance of child actor Michael Rainey Jr.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Candis doesn't trust his himself to pull it off, weighing the film down with a disconnected score that pushes an otherwise edgy story into melodrama.

Full Review | Original Score: 5.8/10

An almost likable movie about unshackling the past.

Full Review | Original Score: C-

What begins as a promising peek into the tragic cycle of waylaid promise that's crippling broken inner-city families is itself dispiritingly pulled sideways in the Baltimore-set indie "LUV."

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Both for good and for ill, "LUV" has a film-school feeling about it, and channels a legacy of fatalistic American crime cinema that includes "Mean Streets" and "Treasure of the Sierra Madre."

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Saved from its predictable plotline by a strong cast and a central relationship written and performed with sensitivity, LUV reveals the stakes of trusting in a role model and the costs when that person turns out to be human.

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"LUV" may not convince with Woody's aggressively telescoped transformation. But the actors compensate.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

It does not entirely succeed, but at its best "Luv" shows the kind of heart and intelligence that is always welcome - and often missing - in American movies.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

The first half of the movie is painfully tense, drawing us into a relationship that we desperately want to see work. But the screenplay lets its characters down, as it devolves into platitudes and melodrama.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

his contains plenty of incidental pleasures, including some vibrant images of contemporary Baltimore and fun character turns from Charles S. Dutton, Danny Glover, and Dennis Haysbert.

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