The main reason this films works so well is that Singleton has assembled an excellent cast to play the brothers. full review

Unremarkably schizophrenic -- half gritty sojourn into the inner-city furnace, half Hollywood brain death. full review

Four Brothers is a violent, macho story with a perfect feel for the dynamics between four tough guys who will do anything for each other. full review

As long as the action snaps and the violence feels (somewhat) righteous, there'll always be a place for movies such as Four Brothers -- on rainy Saturdays, on TNT. full review

If Four Brothers spent half as much energy making us feel something for its heroes as it spent making us feel nothing for their victims, it would be a far better, and far more engaging, film. full review

Loud, stupid, unrealistic, overdone, without a thought in its ugly little head and kind of enjoyable. full review

The sometimes absurd Brothers works only on a larger-than-life level. But on that level, the zest is back. full review

Most distressing, however, isn't the movie's high tide of bogus gangsta posturing, but its genuinely idiotic and irresponsible glorification of precisely the attitudes that Boyz n the Hood once depicted as vapid, self-replicating and suicidal. full review

A solidly built, yet forgettable revenge action movie that is notable mostly for its outstanding young cast. full review

What holds us are the actors, including Terrence Howard as a cop who grew up with the brothers.

The fatal flaw of John Singleton's latest and most mainstream offering is an off-the-rails narrative that adds up to one giant 'Huh?' full review

[Singleton's] sloppiest, laziest movie to date, springing to life in fits and starts, risibly mawkish and occasionally gripping, and often feeling like it was made up on the set. full review

Four Brothers takes some pains to add an emotional overlay to the proceedings, to connect, albeit roughly, with the notion that a character's humanity can be part of the on-screen equation. full review

As a vivid, bloody piece of escapist gimmickry, it works. full review

All that's missing from Four Brothers' battery of macho cliches is a speedboat chase, a role for Carl Weathers and a villain with a pet cobra. full review

Ridiculously violent, crude, homophobic, brash and often plain absurd.

Add a script that teeters precariously between vengeance, poignancy and comedy, and Four Brothers starts to look like four movies.

Despite random bursts of ambition, Four Brothers ultimately feels like a genre movie, only without as much satisfying payoff as we might like.

Easily the best 1975 B-movie made in 2005, Four Brothers is a raucously entertaining vigilante film.