Excellent, a Must See

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I was a big fan of Homicide: Life on the Street which remains one of the television shows I've most enjoyed watching. The last two seasons do colour my impression somewhat but I usually like to remember the good times of the first five seasons. Homicide: The Movie is definitely in the mold of the last two seasons in that it's good but the magic is missing, the movie is a pretty good effort all the same though. Pembleton is back to his old self and old favourites Brody and Detective Howard are back, although their input is minimal. I liked spotting actors from the HBO show "Oz" (not coincidentally this movie was co-written by Oz creator Tom Fontana).Homicide: The Movie is worth watching but it's not great, eg. I didn't bother burning a copy of the rental DVD, I'd rather hold out for a DVD boxset which I'll probably have to import from overseas. The story is fairly interesting but still isn't up to the standard of the early days of the show, the presentation is very "TV movie" but we can hardly knock that given its source material. The writers went for Bayliss/Pembleton as the main dynamic which is reassuring, but again the magic is never quite recaptured. Homcide: The Movie ends up being a fitting end to the unfortunately downward trend of the TV series. It was good to see all the characters back but it ends up being yet another installment of Homicide that doesn't live up to the show's brilliant first five seasons. It was a good effort though.

. . . to one of the greatest TV series of all time, which may be a bit pretentious of me since I am only 24. But anyways, Homicide: The Movie provides a firm conclusion to the series, which is more than most TV shows can hope for. What can I say about it? Although it did not end as happily as I might have liked, I remind myself that this a show where at least one person dies every episode, sometimes even a major character, as seen with Felton and Crosetti. My hope for the future is that Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which carries on Homicide's legacy on with Det. John Munch, will feature some of the series characters on future episodes.

The movie was excellent, save for some of the scenes with Esposito. I enjoyed how it brought together every detective on the series, and wrapped up some plotlines that were never resolved during the series (thanks to NBC...). It was great to see Pembleton and Bayliss together at their most human, and most basic persons. Braugher and Secor did a great job, but as usual will get overlooked. It hurt to see that this was the end of Homicide. Memories, tapes, and reruns on CourtTV just aren't the same as watching it come on every Friday. But the movie did its job and did it very well, presenting a great depiction of life after Al retired, and the family relationship that existed between the unit. I enjoyed this a lot.

HLOTS the series, especially the first few seasons, was breathtaking: gritty, ultra-realistic, without ado and with superior writing and camerawork.HLOTS the movie was none of that, the final scene found me with a sour taste at the back of my throat, and cemented that feeling of having been let down badly. That scene killed everything that the series stood for -- once and for all.While it was nice to in general see the old characters again (the only reason I didn't go lower with my vote), I do hope no one gets the idea of making another one like that. Fontana should have left well alone.Each original episode is far superior.