whatever its flaws, it is a substantial and distinctive drama, unlike anything around in the cinema right now; It's a heavy meal to digest, but this is a strong, vehement film with a real sense of time and place
in spite of pacing issues and a few pointless subplots, "Motherless Brooklyn" features an intriguing central mystery, investigated by a genuinely engaging gumshoe
if it all sometimes feels trapped in the amber of his intentions, "Brooklyn" still casts a quiet sort of spell: a meticulously, lovingly made mood piece, full of empathy for the ones who can't speak for themselves
for his long-gestating adaptation, Edward Norton takes the material at face value, transplanting the story to a period-appropriate '50s milieu, resulting in a sturdy old-fashioned detective story with a lot on its mind
Edward Norton's long-aborning adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's much-lauded 1999 novel "Motherless Brooklyn" is stylishly made, politically driven, musically arresting, narratively confusing and, at nearly two-and-a-half hours, far too long
at almost two and a half hours, “Motherless Brooklyn” could stand to be tightened up, but it’s an engaging take on a genre that can fall easily into hacky cliches
as a socio-political drama about gentrification, race, class, poverty, and the overlooked common man getting pushed to the fringes by big money, Norton's film is sincere and even affecting, especially when the exceptional Gugu Mbatha-Raw, is involved
