Blue Hill Avenue (2001)

This is a demanding, intelligent film of considerable complexity and of sufficient seriousness to justify its 128-minute running time.

Writer-director Craig Ross Jr. offers both rigorously effective dramatic sections and terribly pedantic and melodramatic strokes of overkill.

The film is naive in its glorification of violence and vengeance.

The story has little resonance or depth. The R-rated movie comes off as exploitative and derivative.