Leguizamo owns Empire, the first film to capture the live-wire crackle of his one-man stage shows -- He's front and center in nearly every scene, and he holds the screen with a simmering self-assurance.Read Full Review »
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LOS ANGELES TIMES: Kevin Thomas
In regard to Franc. Reyes' engrossing and utterly uncompromising Empire let it be said right at the top that the protean John Leguizamo, last seen as Toulouse-Lautrec in "Moulin Rouge," gives one of the best performances of the year in a lead role in an American movie.Read Full Review »
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CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Roger Ebert
Comes so close to working that you can see there from here. It has the right approach and the right opening premise, but it lacks the zest and it goes for a plot twist instead of trusting the material.Read Full Review »
63
Philadelphia Inquirer: Steven Rea
Empire, with its double-barreled shoot-outs, its predictable carnage and conflict, and a rush-job of a resolution, is ultimately just one more urban gangland genre flick.Read Full Review »
Rossellini doesn't do much more than show up and be a hundred kinds of ravishing. Yet there's a movie in her ageless face and that untamed bouffant.Read Full Review »
30
Washington Post: Ann Hornaday
A retread of material already thoroughly plumbed by Martin Scorsese.Read Full Review »
30
Salon.com: Stephanie Zacharek
Life in the Bronx is hard, all right. Getting through a movie shouldn't be harder.Read Full Review »
20
Village Voice: Laura Sinagra
Too bad the central bedfellowship never gels, and Franc. Reyes's script turns a dissection of ambition into "Sleeping With the Enemy"-style nonsense.Read Full Review »
10
Washington Post: Desson Thomson
Doesn't deserve the energy it takes to describe how bad it is.Read Full Review »
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