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.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
Jon Stewart's filmmaking debut "Rosewater" has much in common with "The Daily Show" - it's blaringly obvious, it's naive, it plays to the cheap seats and it's enamored with cheap jokes.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Rosewater" is a reminder that America may have its critics, but at least there's little danger of the average citizen being arrested for appearing on a fake news show.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
The film goes slightly beyond rigorous earnestness and settles into a kind of stubborn atonement.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Stewart acquits himself solidly, though not thrillingly, as a beginning director .

Name : John Anderson / Alias : Newsday
Earnest, well-acted, less than urgent, but more than a vanity project.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
Stewart does a credible job of maintaining the story's immediacy, but I must say I felt relieved that the film wasn't a masterpiece. If it was, we'd have more reason to fear Stewart will leave The Daily Show.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
In outline, Rosewater sounds earnest, one-note, relentless - something you'd watch out of a sense of duty. But it turns out to be a sly, layered work, charged with dark wit along with horror.

Name : Tomas Hachard / Alias : NPR
The result neither portrays the suffering of Bahari's incarceration adequately nor lampoons the absurdities of the situation.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
For a first effort, Stewart hasn't done a bad job. There's just the nagging feeling with "Rosewater" that a better movie was possible.

Name : Dana Stevens / Alias : Slate
Though at times Rosewater is clearly the work of a first-timer still finding his voice, Stewart is indisputably a real filmmaker.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
Mr. Stewart's interest in the material is obviously personal, but his movie transcends mere self-interest.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
A solid, powerfully acted political drama about human endurance in the face of ideological oppression.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Rosewater certainly has merit as an act of atonement on Stewart's part and a tribute to people like Bahari. In the end, however, the movie needs to stand on its own, apart from its noble intentions and the popularity of its writer-director.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Stewart does a solid job of handling the facts of the time; it feels true to the moment, like a filmed Newsweek story. Creative acting, dramatizedthemes, gifted cinematic styling? Not so much.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
Rosewater is an earnest picture, but it's also got some juice - there's vitality and feeling in it, the secret ingredients so often missing from even the most well-intentioned first features.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
What makes "Rosewater" different from similar entries in what might be called the Triumph of the Imprisoned Spirit genre is that the hero is hardly an ideologue, despite having sympathy for the Iranian reformers and the Green party.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : Film.com
"Rosewater" marks the debut of a director whose brains and guts are the equal or the better of his eye and heart .

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
This is Jon Stewart's directorial debut; the talk show comedian has a handle on the material and conveys it clearly.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
Stewart's enthusiasm for his story and passion about injustice ring clear, but throughout what could have been a dreadfully somber film, he remembers to breathe.

Name : Jocelyn Noveck / Alias : Associated Press
A clear-headed, sensitive and thoroughly impressive directorial debut for the Comedy Central host.

Name : Richard Corliss / Alias : TIME Magazine
The virtue of this movie is its commitment to political ambiguity and emotional truth.

Name : Esther Breger / Alias : The New Republic
The main question Rosewater grapples with is whether Stewart can hack it as a filmmaker. The answer: sort of?

Name : Mary Houlihan / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
With Rosewater, Stewart proves he can pull back from the satirical comedy and become a thoughtful, incisive and questioning filmmaker.

Name : David Denby / Alias : New Yorker
The hard-focus clarity of the images (Bobby Bukowski did the cinematography) leads to an intimacy with anguish that passes into expressionism.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
While the film keeps telling us that Bahari survived his ordeal by freeing his mind from imprisonment and eventually outsmarting his rosewater-scented interrogator, we are told that he's doing so more than we're seeing it.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Stewart has created an informative, dark and witty story imbued with black humor surrounding Bahari's confinement.

Name : Joe McGovern / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Rosewater, starring the geeky-charismatic Gael Garcia Bernal as Bahari, is a gripping drama, smartly calibrated for Western audiences who still need an education in the bright, progressive, fight-back impulses in Iranian culture.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out New York
The film settles into the kind of sobriety you've seen too often .

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
That the movie is as tense and chilling as it is owes much to first-time director Jon Stewart's keen eye for the way humor surfaces even in the dark places.

Name : Bob Mondello / Alias : NPR
Rosewater . has an urgency that's all about the storytelling smarts of its first-time writer-director.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
A strong, striking political drama.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Stewart lets the truth roll out, the best he can, believing in the sanitizing effect of sunlight and the inevitable fate that awaits all despots.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
A finely wrought, powerful drama that tells the true story of an Iranian-born journalist's imprisonment and torture by the Islamic regime in Iran.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
Centrist mush-basic, boilerplate human-interest stuff that's too shapeless to completely work as drama, and too depoliticized to be taken seriously as anything else.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
"Rosewater" doesn't hector, nor does it giggle about the issue of press freedom. It's an impressive and important piece of storytelling.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
Stewart proves to be an able filmmaker in "Rosewater." But he also shows hints of being something more.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
A persuasive production despite its limited budget .

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
Stewart's wryly observant qualities as a TV star serve him well in his feature film debut.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Stewart and cinematographer Bobby Bukowski cover it all in a straightforward, watchable way, the performances are all sincere and solid and the situation is easy to respond to emotionally.

Name : Geoff Pevere / Alias : Globe and Mail
It's a movie made for people who prefer to take their politics while sitting on the couch.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
While it may seem like another triumph-over-adversity tale, the movie is really about what sustains us during impossible moments.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Stewart can never quite answer the question: Why this man's story, of all the ones that should be told? And why now, five years later?