30
The jarring 1990s sensibility of this over-directed, under-written movie extends to style as well as content. Worst of all is the blatantly fetishistic attitude the director adopts towards his posturing macho star.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
With the exploitative brashness and twice the volume of his New Jack City, Van Peebles mixes rap with rawhide for a deliriously exaggerated entertainment.
30
Posse is a great idea for a movie, but rarely has such a solid idea been exploited with greater indifference or lack of imagination.
63
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
Despite its numerous problems, Posse remains an entertaining film. Not only does it bring an innovative perspective to the western, it tells a solid story.
70
The New York Times by Janet Maslin
Mr. Van Peebles and his screenwriters, Sy Richardson and Dario Scardapane, care most about making their points emphatically, even if that sometimes leaves Posse riding heavy in the saddle. Luckily, most of their film is fast-paced and star-studded enough to avoid an overly preachy tone.
75
In both senses of the word, Posse is a colorful outing that fills a real gap, a film you can respect as well as enjoy. [14 May 1993, p.45]
50
Austin Chronicle by Louis Black
In its own way, sloppy and excessive with LSD camera work and cutting, Posse is like a Gene Autrey Western from the Forties where the bad guys are the bad guys and the good guys are the good guys and the girl and the boy love each other (and those films were frequently more elliptically hallucinatory than this).
60
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
As Van Peebles turns the western into an equal-opportunity genre, his voice occasionally fades in the din. But be assured: It’s a voice spoiling to be heard.
70
The New Yorker by Richard Brody
Van Peebles tells the story with ferocious vigor and unsparing brutality, entering Jesse’s haunted memory and dramatizing the farsighted schemes and improvisational daring on which the men's survival depends.
50
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
This is an overdirected, overphotographed, overdone movie that is so distracted by its hectic, relentless style that the story line is rendered almost incoherent.