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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
22
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
The Mercury NewsMar 13, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Henry and Moura play off each other well with Henry’s multi-layered performance — he stays true to the survivor spirit inherent in his character throughout — worthy of awards consideration. He and Moura nail the details in a production that nails gritty visual details about what the hard edges of Philly and a few of its tattered by the opioid crisis ‘burbs look and feel like.
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Mar 14, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Even if he [Brian Tyree Henry] and Moura feel too old and too put-together to be characters originally written as part-time junkie losers, their relationship is an emotional core that serves as a foundation as the stakes continue to rise. Most of all, “Dope Thief” delivers as a vehicle for Henry. In a rare starring role, the actor holds the screen as well as anybody and finally has an opportunity to show off all his angles and the deep well of empathy he’s able to conjure.
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The TelegraphMar 14, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The notes of comedy are nicely done in the dialogue between Manny and Ray, but work less well when applied to violent encounters. .... What you can’t fault are the performances, especially from Henry as the more dynamic half of this partnership. He is tremendous in the lead, the master of every scene whether playing for laughs, mining the anger that goes with having a prison inmate for a father (Ving Rhames), or desperately trying to stay one step ahead of the game.
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Mar 13, 2025
Season 1 Review:
It can get a little confusing, and there’s too much responsibility given a character introduced late in the game, which I regard as bad sportsmanship in genre writing. But it will all be explained in the very satisfying end. I’d call the closing scene and final exchange just about perfect, except I’d leave out “just about.”
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Mar 13, 2025
Season 1 Review:
“Dope Thief” is a showcase for Mr. Henry (“Atlanta”), who has something of a task in maintaining Ray’s lowlife bona fides while keeping us interested, which he does. Mr. Moura, too, is first rate and both actors make their characters quite affecting, especially as they watch the little caper they concocted turn into an inferno.
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Mar 7, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The crime story itself can seem a bit familiar and overextended at times, and some of the set pieces toward the season's end feel overheated, but Dope Thief's investment in its characters' inner lives keeps it compelling. That's made possible by a string of first-rate performances, from the supporting cast (Mulgrew and Rhames are, unsurprisingly, standouts) to Ireland and Moura's work as complicated, passionate, deeply conflicted characters.
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Mar 14, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The most peripheral parts of “Dope Thief” are also its most expendable. Black-and-white flashbacks to Ray’s formative traumas feel like filler. .... These choices are all the more frustrating for Henry being more than capable of holding the show down on his own. The actor makes the most of the material served to him on a silver platter. .... By the end, you’ll be more eager for relief than interested in Ray’s fate. That’s not for a lack of effort or ability on Henry’s part, however.
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Mar 13, 2025
Season 1 Review:
There are limitations on Henry’s performance in “Dope Thief” as well — Ray’s trauma-induced anger gets to be a little too familiar across eight episodes, and his rants and complaints begin to run together. .... But “Dope Thief” remains entertaining — Craig capably layers biker gangs, a Vietnamese crime family, neo-Nazi killers, actual D.E.A. agents and Ray’s mostly Black neighbors into a sardonic farce that works on its own baroque terms.
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ColliderMar 7, 2025
Mar 7, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Dope Thief is just the latest in a long line of TV projects that feels like it should have either been two episodes shorter or, maybe better yet, a film—the show can’t help but feel stretched out, especially after our duo makes it through yet another casualty-heavy shootout. .... [Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura] create a lived-in rapport immediately here, seeming so naturally brotherly with their banter and busting.
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RogerEbert.comMar 14, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Lost momentum aside, those three performances [Brian Tyree Henry, Wagner Moura and Marin Ireland] make “Dope Thief” worth a look, but my true hope is that the show is successful enough that future seasons could leave the source material and thereby correct the pacing issues that hamper a show that often feels too loyal to the elements of the first half of a novel (most of the plotting here is reportedly wrapped up in the first half of Westlake’s book) instead of telling its own story.
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