Illegal Tender Critic Reviews

Quite an entertaining genre piece boasting a terrifically sinewy lead performance from Wanda De Jesus.Read the full review

The movie's a genuine oddity: a Latino action drama with one foot in bullet-spitting genre flicks -- '70s blaxploitation and '80s coke-kingpin films are the primary reference points -- and the other in raggedly personal family melodrama.Read the full review

As it is, Illegal Tender works as a melodrama, and it benefits enormously from the performance of Wanda DeJesus.Read the full review

Too muted to have much lasting impact, and remains modestly diverting only on a scene-to-scene basis. There's no quotable dialogue, no standout action sequence, no flashy supporting performances -- in short, nothing to lift Illegal Tender from the level of competent but inconsequential B-movie.Read the full review

For a second, the movie has the snap of a truly surprising thriller -- like a Hispanic "Kill Bill" -- about an aging lioness willing to kill to protect her cub.Read the full review

A throwback to 1970s blaxploitation flicks, with a Latin accent, Illegal Tender would be a brassy, sassy guilty pleasure if it were more, well, pleasurable.Read the full review

Never gets the mixture right, lurching between bullet-happy shootouts and overwrought domestic content.Read the full review

For a film about growing up, Illegal Tender loses itself in a lot of silly juvenilia.Read the full review