Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
It's hard to tell how much time has passed between scenes, or just why, as the twists come, the characters would suddenly turn so dumb.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
Triple 9 imagines itself a sprawling, nihilistic epic, and it floats along for a while on the shoulders of its prestige filmmaking and cast, but ultimately the storytelling just isn't up to the task.

Name : Katie Walsh / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Hillcoat directs with a sense of immediacy and grimy realism, bringing the audience into the shootouts and bloodshed on the streets. Atlanta becomes another war zone for the men who have seen war, battling an enemy of a different race and culture.

Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
Triple 9 races past in a blur of crime and action scenes, with plenty of violence and the odd spot of gallows humour to keep things interesting.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Hillcoat's approach is to craft a pulse-pounding experience that employs a mixture of conventional footage and hand-held work. There's an immediacy to the most gripping scenes.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The most impressive thing about Triple 9 is that it somehow manages to be both predictable and incoherent at the same time. Well, that and the fact that it manages to make half a dozen good actors look really lost.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
Though compelling in the acting and cinematography, Triple 9's plot is by the numbers and about nothing.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Triple 9 is no Reservoir Dogs, but it is a twisty, terrific ride. And Kate Winslet has a blast with the Russian accent, the wig, the attitude.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
John Hillcoat packs a binge watch of characters and incidents into this corrupt-cop thriller.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
[Hillcoat is] an expert in creating and sustaining gut-twisting tension. Good qualities all, but used here in the service of a story that is truly unappetizing.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
The slam-bang opening bank robbery and chase channels the best of Michael Mann from his Heat days. But Triple 9 soon bleeds out and becomes a perfunctory hodgepodge of other crime movies.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
There's a blue-chip cast running the gamut from A (Casey Affleck) to W (Kate Winslet) and terrific action sequences in Triple 9 - but in the end, this relentlessly nihilistic crime-caper thriller adds up to less than the sum of its impressive parts.

Name : Matthew Lickona / Alias : San Diego Reader
The uneven thing [here] is John Hillcoat's direction: a tense, sustained journey through an apartment while lined up behind a bulletproof shield alternating with indulgent zooms and cuts depicting local color.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Matt Cook's maiden feature-length screenplay-something about dirty Atlanta cops being blackmailed by the Russian Jewish mafia-is so murky it leaves the whole cast looking tentative, if not defensive.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
If you're in the right frame of mind for a lurid, blood-soaked B-movie with an A-list cast, Triple 9 is just the ticket.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : New York Daily News
It's got everything except a real script. Or director.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Most parties concerned maintain their grim countenances, their characters struggling to find the sweet spot between honor and greed, between doing the right thing and doing the absolute worst.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
There are a lot of great actors here and surprisingly good action scenes and a tense ending, all of which make "Triple 9" one of the more enjoyable urban crime dramas in recent memory.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Although "Triple 9" was most likely just a paycheck film for all involved, its go-for-the-gut efficiency can't be denied.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"Triple 9" doesn't exactly transcend its genre, but it definitely exploits it for all it's worth.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
Hillcoat brings stray moments of style and surprise to "Triple 9" but not nearly enough to save it; for every twist you don't see coming, there are five you probably will.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Without much investment, one just sits back with increasing detachment and bemused curiosity as to where and on whom the next shoe will drop.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"Triple 9" feels more like a collection of good scenes than a novel, propulsive whole. Viewers are apt to be entertained by the film's visceral pulp pleasures, but left apathetic when it comes to its instantly forgettable genre cliches.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Triple 9" is a superbly crafted film, the sort of big-screen roller coaster I admire even if its plot falters.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
If there's a police code it merits, it's a "10-22": "Disregard."

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
"Triple 9" is as heartless as the people who infest it-the exception being a decent cop, Chris Allen, played by Casey Affleck-and mannered to the point of self-parody.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
A miserable, misguided police drama that almost seems to hate the police.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
One of those productions in which much of the creative energy has been funneled into gaudily inventive displays of violence.

Name : Mark Jenkins / Alias : NPR
Cops prowl darkened mazes, looking for perps they probably couldn't see even if they found them.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Given the movie's bloody stew of greed and sadism, its unbalanced frames and ear-scraping soundscape, its moral tidiness can bring a smile to your otherwise appalled face.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
Tight, taut and brilliantly structured.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : MTV
#AllLivesMatter? Not here. Hillcoat wants us to admit the truth behind the robbers' callous calculation: Some people are worth more than others.

Name : Barbara VanDenburgh / Alias : Arizona Republic
The action is bracing, the twists sprightly, but the sum of its parts sits heavy, like a meal that won't digest.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Triple 9 is like a David Ayer film on steroids, which is to say it's like Training Day if most of the characters were as morally compromised as Denzel Washington's.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
A modern-day heist thriller of unusually grim, coiled intensity .

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
It's a very good film about a very bad man. But as well-crafted and well-acted as it is, it never rises to greatness because we've been watching this story in one way or another going back to the time of Jimmy Cagney and Edward G. Robinson.

Name : Dave Calhoun / Alias : Time Out
Johnny Depp is more engaging than he's been in years, even if his performance can feel a little restricted and one-note.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A bleak, claustrophobic based-on-fact film that draws us completely into a dark world of crime and complicity.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
[Depp] holds the screen as pure malevolence.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
It's as if the spirit of a psychopath like Bulger resists the camera. Or maybe the movie isn't imaginative enough to penetrate his shell.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
There are moments of icy violence, and some great lived-in faces among the characters. But this is no "Goodfellas." It's just another punk, talking tough.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Depp's brutal antihero is the highlight of this compelling if somewhat familiar gangster movie.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
If there's a problem with Black Mass, it's that the general arc of the story is well known.its details reflect the plot points of many other gangster films. But it's the getting there that's the thrill.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Black Mass" is the sort of gangland film you would call run of the mill, if only it dashed faster.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
The acting here is much stronger and more soulful than I would have expected, and not only from Depp.

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
Propelled by a raw and primal performance by Johnny Depp, Scott Cooper's Black Mass will have you barricading your doors and hiding under the bed after seeing this corrosive gangster film.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
In scene after scene, some fine actors go to town and dive into the material gratefully.

Name : Peter Hartlaub / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"Black Mass" is a solid piece of filmmaking, from subtle beginning to the excessive end.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
This is the sort of movie Sidney Lumet might have made in his prime - intelligently written, handsomely mounted, and loaded with top actors.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
"Black Mass" isn't pretty, but it certainly is strong.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
This is Depp bringing his skills to the table as a man with a propensity for being both terrifying and charming, often switching between the two on a dime.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
The role is Depp's best in many years, and a welcome respite from the parade of prancing pseudo-villains-Mortdecai, the Wolf, Barnabas Collins, Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka-to which he has devoted far too much of his career.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Depp shines in a solid gangster biopic.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
It's one of those movies that you don't exactly enjoy (so many guns, so many deaths), but you appreciate for its craft and tension, and for its cast's willingness to lose themselves in the darkness.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
While there's nothing totally new here, Black Mass works the tropes extremely well and sets the scene early in the mean streets of 1970s South Boston.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
Welcome back to the real world, Mr. Depp.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
This is a good, solid, well-executed crime story. Nothing more, nothing less.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
A crime drama that creeps and drips blood like a horror movie, and in many respects it is.

Name : Barry Hertz / Alias : Globe and Mail
Whenever Depp is on screen, nothing else matters.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
Black Mass isn't The Departed, and it's a bit too black and white. But movie mobster fans can relax, cause the movie doesn't need to have a hit taken out on it.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
Black Mass more or less limits itself to procedural status. Within those aims, it's a pretty good one, absorbing and well-made.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Black Mass, a down and dirty crime drama based on the exploits of Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, is thrilling for a number of reasons.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
Black Mass struggles to find something new to say about organized crime and the loyalty between men. But the only thing the film manages to do is remind us we've seen all this stuff done before, and done better.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
Johnny Depp does career-best work as notorious Boston gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger in Scott Cooper's taut, elegantly understated crime drama.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
Black Mass is a tightly wound piece of work, and Cooper keeps its many small parts moving with ease.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
The movie's good enough that you should see it if you want to. But you don't have to, and, in these parts, that matters.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
For Black Mass, Johnny Depp has dusted off his A-game, which has lain dormant for far too long.

Name : Jocelyn Noveck / Alias : Associated Press
It's absolutely chilling to watch Depp. With bad teeth and a head of dramatically receding hair, the actor somewhat resembles Jack Nicholson in The Departed but deftly avoids caricature as he grows more sinister with every murder.

Name : Dana Stevens / Alias : Slate
Depp's performance as Bulger is as strong, and as energized, as anything he's done on screen for years.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
I'm as susceptible as any other deskbound, conflict-averse fantasist to the visceral appeal of a good gangster movie. But "Black Mass" isn't one.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
What "Black Mass" gains in moral honesty, it loses in dramatic momentum. Even filmmakers and actors as fine as these haven't managed to solve one of cinema's most enduring challenges - making criminals interesting without exalting them.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
How much longer must we subscribe, as moviegoers, to the sentimental brotherhood of violence?

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
You forgive the zigs, zags, evasions and subplots for the hardcore power of Depp's performance and the film's portrait of moral rot on both sides of the law.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
The acting in "Black Mass" is tremendous.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
With all the talent on board here, expectations go beyond creepiness; unfortunately creepiness is about as far as the movie ultimately goes.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
"Black Mass" is a riveting character study and might land Depp an Oscar nomination, even if the film itself is not very ambitious.