Metacritic reviews

A superb entertainment, it also has something to say.

A clever thriller with a lot of unbelievable scenes and a sappy ending, but two wonderful performances.

Thanks to a terrific performance by Freeman and slick direction by Jerry Schatzberg, this is a fast-moving, intermittently riveting crime drama.

Director Jerry Schatzberg has made a penetrating study of human relations--racial and sexual--within a sharply observed social framework.

The plot line may fray at times, especially with Fisher's dizzyingly quick segue from magazine reporter to Geraldo Rivera-like television muckraker. But Schatzberg anchors his story with enough pungently observed details of New York--its lofts, chic editorial offices, in restaurants and sad and tawdry street scenes--and with enough marvelous actors, in big roles and small, to give his story real bite.

An engrossing study of loose talk, weakness and seduction, played out in both the world of high-powered journalism and the seediest corners of Times Square.

Often underrated, Jerry Schatzberg can make viewers feel the beauty and excitement of everyday grit.

Street Smart is marred by dumb coincidences and by an ending that is immoral - it abruptly applauds a form of exploitation it has spent most of its considerable energy criticizing - but its texture is grittily realistic and its psychosexual sophistication is surprising in an American potboiler. [17 Apr 1987]

Street Smart as a whole is flat. Director Jerry Schatzberg's major problems are lethargic pacing and a strained plot.

It's not very good, but there are redeeming features. [24 Apr 1987, p.D1]