Apple really wants to give money to Oscar winning directors to bolster its own credentials. The problem is that Steve McQueen isn't nearly as good as everyone insists he is. His output is wildly inconsistent. This one falls somewhere in the middle.
It looks pretty decent - of course most shots are very tight to disguise the difficulty of dressing the city to look old without millions of pounds. The CG is fairly good when they do go wider.
The story is paper thin and at two hours it really drags in the middle, you could cut 20 minutes and it would be a lot better. Of course he shoehorns in a lot of stuff about racism as he tends to, like Spike Lee he can't leave it alone even when it's not really the point of the story. It doesn't detract from the film but it doesn't add much either.
Ultimately though it feels like this is a film he made because Apple wanted to give him the money, it doesn't really have anything to say and certainly nothing new.
