"Made by the same writer/director and star as Coffy (1973), this film is just as rough and ready as the earlier one and even more explicit in its scenes of violence...The overall effect is a good deal less than gratifying."
The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: The Gangster Film

"It's pretty outrageous, with decapitation by plane propeller, castration, rape, drugs, bondage, gay and lesbian characters and lots of wigs. Actually, Grier is abused too much in this one and doesn't spend enough time kicking ass."
Michael J. Weldon, The Psychotronic Video Guide

"In both Coffy and Foxy Brown, Pam was given starring shots and was allowed to strut her stuff, both dramatically and physically...in Foxy Brown, her name might have changed, but her routine didn't. This time around it's her boyfriend that's been offed by the drug-pushing crime lords, and after bedding 'em and burning 'em, Pam takes vigilante-ism to new heights as when she castrates one of the dope kingpins and sends his organ back in a pickle jar."
Steve Puchalski, Slimetime

"Exiting scenes after stirring up trouble is something of a habit for Grier's character: in one scene, she leaves a high-profile judge in public with his pants down. Later, she busts up a drug deal with a borrowed airplane and speeds away to catch up to one of the dealers. In yet another scene, she runs away from a pair of kidnappers, one of them disfigured by her makeshift weapon, the other burned in a gas fire. Everyone who meets this woman is changed by the encounter."
Chris Holland & Scott Hamilton, Stomp Tokyo

"Grier's follow-up to Coffy, also scripted and directed by Hill, lacks all the fine, subversive qualities she lent that film. She continues the avenger role, but in much diluted form, simply exacting retribution for the murder of her narcotics officer boyfriend (gone is Coffy's environment of all-pervasive and over-weening corruption); and in any case this is subsumed in a general racial tone, with every white within spitting distance made a bigot, for the sole purpose of milking audience reactions in the most blatant way possible. Grier is an actress able to convey an amazing and unflinching strength, and she reveals the film for the dross it is."
TimeOut London

"Foxy Brown is...the kind of movie you love because of its flaws rather than despite them. The often horrendous dialogue, silly costumes, amateurish fighting, eccentric characterizations, and Pam Grier changing from one skimpy outfit to the next is what you'll see for the duration, and if that's all it takes to entertain you, the goods are definitely delivered here."
Vince Leo, Qwipster's Movie Reviews

"Foxy Brown is about as well rounded as an exploitation film could possibly be...It has the memorable characters, dialogue and the amazing charisma of a great cast. The story is simplistic, maybe even cut and paste, but the film makes it work. It's a simple us vs. them story, and the film sells it from the very beginning...Even when the film is violent, gritty and downright mean, it's still all part of one story and we know by the end the good guys are going to win."
Varied Celluloid

"Jack Hill was always a much better writer/director than most of his exploitation peers, and if his films were often formulaic they were never boring, and frequently laugh-out-loud funny. Foxy Brown has got some great lines...memorably dubious characters and plenty of suitably immoral behaviour. The evil drug runners are particularly amusing – in keeping with the film's Girl Power theme, they're led by the intensely unnerving Kathryn Loder, and are as idiotic a collection of goons as you're likely to find. Other male characters – a corrupt judge, lecherous drug trafficker, the loathsome Link – are deeply unimpressive examples of their gender and are quickly kicked into touch by the no-nonsense Foxy."
Daniel Auty, The Spinning Image

"There's grotesque Seventies fashions aplenty, a disgustingly kinky relationship between the nasty-looking mob boss and her gigolo boyfriend, big cars, big guns, big hair, and lots of wah-wah guitar soundtrack...Predictably, the story builds up to a torrent of violence and gunplay by the end (including death by airplane propeller). This is fun action sleaze from the classic era of drive-in blaxploitation films, driven by the no-nonsense direction of Jack Hill, and did well enough at the box office to help put the still-gorgeous Pam Grier on the map. Don't miss it."
Jerry Renshaw, The Austin Chronicle

"First of all, they just don't make movies like this anymore. Movies today are so sanitized and wiped free of genuine emotion that one doesn't have much of a reaction to them. This movie features RAW emotion, mainly rage and anger. It also doesn't play nice on the brutality. I could not believe Foxy was actually going to be raped... that would NEVER happen in a movie today, and if it did, it would never be treated as casually as it was here. The way she is brutalized in this movie is genuinely shocking, and the ways in which she gets her revenge are equally shocking... and exhilarating."
Cinema de Merde

"Sleazy blaxploitation film from the 70s that's built around big busted Pam Grier as Foxy Brown knocking you over with her brown sugar and spice. It's writer-director Jack Hill's follow-up to his commercially successful Coffy, which also featured Pam. Foxy lacks the fine subversive quality of the other film, instead it resorts to being an uninteresting revenge film with plenty of violence and cheap thrills aimed at satisfying its mostly black audience...Pam proves to be up for the role's physicality, looks hot in every tacky outfit she adorns, handles a gun like a pro, curses with the best of 'em, can drive a Cadillac Sedan de Ville as if it were a lethal weapon and still shines as a desirable sex symbol. This one is strictly for the blaxploitation crowd and fans of Pam."
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' Movie Reviews

"Brutal, tasteless, nasty, and completely enjoyable. Pam looks great as always and gets to pull guns out of her afro. It's another prime example of the extremes you could explore in the 1970s that would never be permitted in a million years these days...And it goes without saying that the Willie Hutch soundtrack is superb. The theme song kicks almost as much ass as Pam, and the rest is suitably funky and cool. You only wish your life had this theme music."
Keith Allison, Teleport City

"When 'the party's over,' as Brown later announces, we are witnessing hero iconography reminiscent of Bruce Lee. Amid the pantsuits and head wraps, Grier shines in this sometimes-meandering production. She delivers a performance full of conviction and candor. Whether tore up or glammed up, Grier as Brown becomes the ultimate female hero. Rage never looked so good."
Charles Conn, The Austin Chronicle

Compiled by Richard Harland Smith