Fishburne excels in his triple-threat roles as actor, director and adapter of his own play, and his cast glows under his direction.

Showcases a trio of terrific performances.

May lack any transcendent point that would make it exceptional, but it is certainly a worthy start, and worth catching.

Has a credibly gritty texture, thanks in large part to Fishburne's generosity with his fellow actors.

Basically it's an acting exercise - a one-set rendition of that old stage and movie standby, the ex-convict struggling to go straight who's tempted to attempt one last score.

Strong, hard, dirty, funny, moving atmospheric and laced with scabrously musical street dialogue.

As urban gangster drama, Once in the Life is way below mundane, and Fishburne's direction exceeds the rookie jitters.

The movie remains an actor's exercise--too much dialogue, too much time in the room, too much happening offstage, or in the past, or in memory, or in imagination.

If Laurence Fishburne could only have harnessed his fierce performance to drive his directoral debut, Once in the Life might have made something memorable of the done-to-death tale of small-time crooks on the run after a heist gone wrong.

While the line-readings are often dead-on, Fishburne's movie suffers from the usual one-room claustrophobia and Mametian repetitions.

A film that ultimately feels stagebound and excessively talky, but which showcases an exceptional performance.

The good news is that Fishburne also stars, and has recruited a talented group of actors to flesh out the cast; the bad news is that no one seems to have been on hand to help out with the rest of film.

Doesn't have a lot to offer that hasn't been done better -- and worse -- in hundreds of ghetto-sink shoot-em-ups.