Metacritic reviews

“The Fast and the Furious” with wheelbarrows, Paraguayan action-thriller-romance hybrid 7 Boxes is a rollicking good time at the movies that offers breathtaking action and suspense, humor and appealing characters all in one visually flashy package.

You wait for months, sometimes, for a movie to show you something new. "7 Boxes" does exactly that, and while it's no more than a briskly managed bit of escapism, it's a really good example of same.

7 Boxes is both a tense and frightening crime film as well as a sometimes-dreamy evocation of life in the sprawling underclass, its hallucinatory aspects, its chaos and violence, its fantasies.

The film is ripe with powerful subtext, specifically how greed, celebrity, and technology help to form a misguided sense of opportunity that keeps the working class downtrodden.

The screenplay for 7 Boxes is a beautiful example of how to craft a tense and increasingly complex thriller out of a simple scenario.

The movie has lots of ironic humor, especially in the earlier segments, and laughter doesn't disappear entirely when the thriller element kicks in.

The film surges by, powered by high spirits, well-plotted surprises, and the directors' admirable attention to both the real and romantic.

The filmmakers stage an amazing race that almost absolves an overstuffed plot and an over-reliance on coincidence.

7 Boxes is way too simple, but it mostly works, because every twist of the plot and turn of the street leads back to this one kid, who’ll do anything to make enough money to become someone other than himself.

Given the routineness of the chase itself, what jumps out here is the pervasive desperation shared by just about every character.