"Gena Rowlands is Gloria, a tough-talking, cigarette-smoking ex-gun moll who gives up the fast life to enjoy her hard-earned financial security--only to find herself guardian of a six-year-old Puerto Rican boy on the run from the mob, who have killed the rest of his family. Gloria is a reluctant heroine: reluctant to leave her apartment, her cat, her goldfish; reluctant to protect a kid ('I hate kids'); and reluctant to take on the mob, who were once her friends. But when the moment for action comes, she acts, calmly shooting a carful of the mob's hit men...and then just as calmly hailing a taxi to get away. And then they're off, through the streets and subways of New York, encountering the mob at every local store, bus stop and train station. And yet, the emphasis, because this is a Cassavetes film, is less on violent confrontations than on emotional ones. The camera moves away from action, lingering instead on faces, showing us feelings, moments of exchange, fluctuations of character. 'The discrepancy between the plotting (endless climaxes, vivid confrontations, broad emotions) and the presentation (loose, arrhythmic, uninflected) produced a fascinating tension--it's as if the world of movie-movies, of gun molls, cuddly children, and happy endings, were in constant violent collision with Cassavetes' world of faulty communications, muddled meanings and creeping anticlimaxes.' (Dave Kehr)." Kathy Geritz