Blue Hill Avenue

Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 41 out of 100, based on four critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Upon the film's 2003 theatrical release, Robert Koehler of Variety critiqued it as a "dourly serious film about drug dealers in Boston's South End ghetto" and praised the cast for their performances, though adding that the "transition from the younger performers to the older thesps playing the same characters is painfully unconvincing." He further noted the production and likened it to a "classical crime pic rather than an exploiter," but criticized Ross' repetitive use of tracking shots and close-ups. Overall, Koehler considered the film to be "better than the delay would suggest" and suggested that it could find success "in ancillary with the right marketing." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times praised the film, describing how it "departs dramatically from the standard ghetto drug action picture to offer a somber, grueling look at the day-to-day existence of four friends in the Boston area who get caught up in the drug trade in junior high school."