Never Die Alone Critic Reviews

Never Die Alone is [Dickerson's] best work to date, with the complexity of serious fiction and the nerve to start dark and stay dark, to follow the logic of its story right down to its inevitable end.Read the full review

That the film finds its own groove is due largely to the eye of director Ernest Dickerson. Not surprisingly, he began his career as a cinematographer, working on Spike Lee’s early films.Read the full review

Primarily a riveting genre film that neatly exhibits the director's growing assurance -- Donald Goines would be proud. Read the full review

Almost everything that frames the drug dealer's tale is facile and second-rate. Simply put, you don't believe it. What you do believe is DMX's cruel charisma.Read the full review

Largely overcomes key cast weaknesses to deliver a jazzy, darkly textured rendering of the ghetto pulp of late African-American ex-con author Donald Goines.Read the full review

Invites us to both hate King David and admire his style, and there will probably be some hand-wringing about that.Read the full review

Pulpy, fairly speedy but just the same old urban thing by its wrap-up.Read the full review

Though steeped in both subgenres, Never Die Alone subverts that vicarious enjoyment by showing violence and abuse so unrelentingly ugly that only a sadist could derive the least bit of pleasure from it.Read the full review

Played by DMX in a gravel-pit monotone and a near-total lack of affect, King David cuts an unremittingly tedious swath through Never Die Alone. Read the full review