73
Metascore
19 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88San Francisco ExaminerSan Francisco ExaminerDespite the occasional uneven patch, the emotional punch of Slam leaves you wrung out as the credits unexpectedly start to roll. You want a happy ending, you realize the deck is stacked against it, but - thanks to the redemptive power of the spoken word - you have reason to hope.
- The powerful, natural acting is right out of a documentary, and the open-ended conclusion is an equally challenging statement about the sad futility of sending young people to jail.
- Directed and cowritten by Marc Levin with an intentionally untidy, restless, handheld style that owes a lot to his background as a documentary filmmaker, Slam effectively gets at the deadly, no-way-out despair that can squeeze a man as he realizes he’s become a numbered nobody in the huge, imperfect justice system. Levin’s best idea, though, is to counterbalance that hopelessness with freeing blasts of verse, performed with such drama and passion that audiences may want to break into applause.
- 80The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenWhat Slam possesses is real passion, and that is in short supply in movies these days.
- 75Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversAny cornball contrivances in the plot dissipate in watching the knockout talent of Williams, a performance artist with the exhilarating fire that only the best actors possess.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleBob GrahamSan Francisco ChronicleBob GrahamSlam, directed by Marc Levin, is schematic but effective as it makes its points about African Americans caught in the Washington, D.C., criminal justice system. It's got a wonderful eye and, for a film, ear.
- 75ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliThe real reason to see Slam, however, isn't as much for the story as it is for the energy and tone. The moments when Slam soars makes the rest of it palatable.
- 63Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertSlam is a fable disguised as a slice of life, and cobbled together out of too many pieces that don't fit smoothly together. It's moving, but not as effective as it could have been.
- 60Time OutTime OutShot on actual locations in just nine days by Levin, a former documentarist, and improvised within a detailed scene-by-scene outline, this is a perplexing mix of truth and falsity, spontaneity and cliché.
- Although it begins promisingly enough, with a documentary-like look at the options available to young African-American men who grow up in the "ghetto life," this visually polished film stumbles when it comes to actually telling a story.