Effective and sprawling, if overlong.

Rating: Null/10 (11 September 2015)

Very ambitious project. Perhaps a little too ambitious. I appreciate all of the themes it tried to incorporate, but 150 minutes was just too long. By about an hour I already felt overwhelmed because the film had traced so much story. This is one film that really felt its length. I also think throughout many instances, the film just overplays its melodrama completely. Some dialogue is shoddy, and some of the narrative structure gets messy in its second half (which is definitely overall more problematic). I think the cast is really great though, and the film does get across its overarching, most powerful message about brotherhood and friendship. Jason Mitchell stands out as the MVP here, although everyone does fine work. I was really loving the film in its first half but yeah, it just seems too all over-the-place in its second, but I still liked it a lot