In Devil, folks like Easy Rawlins have long since learned to roll with the racial punches. It's precisely that kind of offhand profundity that makes the movie so memorable. Franklin's picture is effortlessly wise beneath its entertaining surface.

It is a smart, sly film imbued with the rich subtle tones of a mournful blues saxophone piece, worthy of comparisons to some of the best noir films of decades past.

The film climaxes in a gun battle that's as painfully predictable as they come and -- as he did with the movie in general -- Mouse saves the day. His departure from the screen brakes the film to a near halt.

Denzel Washington’s wildly underrated turn as a 1950s Los Angeles sleuth finds the two-time Oscar winner operating at peak charisma and weaving through a morass of noirisms—gangsters, political conspiracies, femmes fatales.