Most critics are unconvinced. Bratton’s 1966 Mississippi thriller, which pairs a Black FBI agent with a mob hitman against the Klan, is found to reach for the weight of civil rights history and settle for buddy-cop beats and spectacle. Where praise gathers, it gathers around Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, whom several reviews single out as the steadier presence, and a few concede that the violence delivers rough, crowd-pleasing thrills.
The reservations cluster on two points: Mark Wahlberg’s performance, called hammy, unconvincing or surface-level by most, and a script that raises questions about when brutality is justified and then loses interest in them. The spread is narrow, with most reviews sitting in mixed-to-negative territory. The one clear dissent is The Wrap, which finds an uneven but durable crime drama that works as both history and thriller. The New Yorker is the most divided, calling it often stirring and often infuriating.