GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Gerry
ThinkFilm Inc.

Gerry reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 54 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
5.4 out of 10
based on 31 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 13 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for language

Starring Casey Affleck, and Matt Damon

Two friends, both named Gerry, get lost while hiking in the desert.


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Casey Affleck
Matt Damon
Gus Van Sant
 
DIRECTED BY: Gus Van Sant  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: November 11, 2003 
Video: November 11, 2003 
Theatrical: February 14, 2003 
RUNNING TIME: 103 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Take a chance on Gerry. It's only a movie, and you'll get out alive no matter what happens on the screen. You might even find you've had a rare adventure.
Read Full Review
100
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Conceptually bold and rapturously beautiful Gerry, a minimalist landscape film that's unlike anything on the American independent scene.
Read Full Review
91
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The movie is on some level a stunt, but it has the fervent, sun-dazed pull of an authentic experience unfolding in real time, with glints of drama, comedy, and terror mixed into the almost-but-not-quite tedium.
Read Full Review
89
Austin Chronicle Staff (Not credited)
Like the man to whom this film is dedicated, Ken Kesey, Gerry just wants to go "further."
Read Full Review
88
Boston Globe Ty Burr
Watching Gus Van Sant's Gerry is the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry. I mean that as high praise.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Casual moviegoers may enjoy it, too, if they follow a simple rule: Stop looking for the way out and let yourself get lost.
Read Full Review
80
Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
About as non-narrative a film as you're likely to see in commercial theaters. This makes it a curiosity and, less charitably, something of a gimmick, but mostly it makes it a challenge.
Read Full Review
80
The New York Times Stephen Holden
With all its quirks, Gerry seeps into your pores like the wind-whipped sand that stings the faces of these disoriented hikers.
Read Full Review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Somewhere between profound and ludicrous, kind of like a cross between "Waiting for Godot" and "Dude, Where's My Car?"
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie is so gloriously bloody-minded, so perverse in its obstinacy, that it rises to a kind of mad purity. The longer the movie ran, the less I liked it and the more I admired it.
Read Full Review
75
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
For those with the patience to latch onto Van Sant's slow, methodical groove. It's worth trying.
Read Full Review
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
The result is like a "Waiting for Godot" for the video-game generation.
Read Full Review
70
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
It's certainly a provocation, with a few funny moments, and for my money it's less phony and offensive than "Finding Forrester."
Read Full Review
70
Slate David Edelstein
In some strange way, I admire the enterprise. Like his Gerrys, Van Sant doesn't seem to know where he's going to wind up when he embarks on these journeys. The ether that seeps into his head might be the price we have to pay for his keeping his mind so open.
Read Full Review
70
Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
There's elegance and grace here, fostering an opportunity to reflect upon why men get so dutiful about being down. It's worth the hike.
Read Full Review
50
New York Post Jonathan Foreman
A gorgeously shot endurance test that is impossible to get through on anything less than a full night's sleep and a double shot of espresso.
Read Full Review
50
New York Magazine Peter Rainer
A wee Boy Scout would have done far better in the wilds. It’s tough to think "Waiting for Godot" when what you’re watching is closer to "Dumb & Dumber."
Read Full Review
50
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Gerry isn't much of anything, and doesn't claim to be. It's a movie stripped of its movieness.
Read Full Review
50
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
If it were a landscape painting, Gerry would deserve a place in the National Gallery. But as a movie...deserves its own wing in The Old Curiosity Shop.
Read Full Review
50
LA Weekly John Powers
Van Sant ultimately reveals so little about this odd couple that we frankly don't give a damn what happens to them. Nor, apparently, does he.
Read Full Review
40
TV Guide Ken Fox
Long takes do not a masterpiece make, and the suspicion that the whole thing is a lark is only bolstered by Damon and Affleck's inability to contain their giggles.
Read Full Review
40
Film Threat Merle Bertrand
For the most part, Gerry is a lot of self-indulgent baloney.
Read Full Review
40
Village Voice J. Hoberman
Exercise in existential tedium that it is, Gerry isn't without devotees.
Read Full Review
40
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Gerry moves slowly and deliberately, like a torture technique, leaving us feeling as dry and dusty and lost as its two characters.
Read Full Review
30
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
In the end, Gerry is beyond the simple question of pleasure. Seeing it may be no fun at all, but then discomfort is part of the price one pays in learning.
Read Full Review
30
Variety Todd McCarthy
Defiantly uncommunicative picture.
Read Full Review
30
The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Gerry is all manner without any trace of depth.
Read Full Review
25
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The desert is clean in Gerry, but it's also empty.
Read Full Review
25
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Strands Matt Damon and Casey Affleck (both named Gerry) in a desert with little to say and do except lose themselves in an existential wasteland of doomed beauty.
Read Full Review
20
Washington Post Desson Thomson
The most screamingly obvious reaction to Gerry is: what a load of pseudo-arty you-know-what.
Read Full Review
0
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Gerry is ragingly bad art that contributes to a definition of independent film as something no one would want to sit through.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 5.4 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Ivan Y. gave it a0:
I gave this a zero because they didn't have lower numbers. All you "brilliant" art cinema-freaks that find this waste of electricity and human effort entertaining or meaningful make me sick. Gus, Casey and Matt should be sued for adding to global warming for the non-green energy used to make it. The real story would have been much more interesting to portray and more meaningful. I would also like to sue to get the two hours of my life wated watching that tripe.

Sidney R. gave it a0:
I don't know what could have been better but perhaps more explanation and an explanation at the end of the boring photography.

karen s. gave it a7:
Thank god I watched it on DVD (not at the movies) because I gave up at 11:30pm after 20 minutes and decided it was too slow for the sleep deprived. The next morning, once it hit around 50minutes in, the slow beginning was able to be appreciated as purposeful timing and not as dragging out a story with little plot. I think the director did a great job of suspense and interest for the patient viewer with a simple script.

Eric M gave it a0:
The worst movie I have ever seen. (period)

Mike B. gave it an 8:
It was plain great. awesome shoot the sh.t dialogue. visually stunning to risk sounding trite. Ebert was right. get lost in it and you'll get its beauty. check out the walking heads shot.

A Mulroneycakes With No Name gave it a 7:
Yeah. Well. Okay, then. Here's Matt Damon and t'other Affleck walking. A lot. For a long time. The end. It's beyond criticism, really: it's the kind of film that knows what it wants to do and how and for how long it wants to do it, and if you get bored, it's your problem. Someone in Britain called it "unforgivable" - which, short of something like "f**cky doodly dum dum dum" is just about the worst thing you can say in reaction to it. It's not made for you, but for itself. And it doesn't have to apologise for what it is. And if you think it does, if that is your attitude, you don't deserve cinema. Really. "Gerry" is what it is, and what it is needs no excuses. Face it: knowing in advance what it entails, either you want to watch it or you don't. And if you don't, and yet end up seeing it anyway, don't come crying to me when you don't like it, because it in't my fault. So there.

Chad S. gave it a 7:
"Gerry" is the ideal movie for rude parents to allow their shrieking baby to wail away. It'll keep a segment of the audience, the segment that can't believe what they walked into, from slipping into a state of rem. Me, however, I've seen "Werckmeister Harmonies". I knew what to expect; long takes of two men walking...in silence, but unlike the Bela Tarr film, instead of metaphor(a fossilized whale that signifies, heaven knows what), we get Matt Damon trying to coax Casey Affleck from a rock. Really, this movie should be insufferable, but it's not. "Gerry" is like a John Ford film on codeine. Gus Van Sant makes good use of his locations. He also pays homage to Hou Hsiao-hsien(I think) at the beginning when the two adventure-seekers occupy their car towards imminent doom. This protracted scene of mere driving recalls "Goodbye, South Goodbye". Even if Bela Tarr and Hsiao-hsien means nothing to you, take note that Matt Damon and an Affleck are there to hold your hand through this sometimes boring, but audacious stunt. I mean, film.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: iPhone 3G | Fantasy Football | Moneywatch | Antivirus Software | Recipes | E3 2009

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use