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He Was a Quiet Man
Quiet Man Productions

He Was a Quiet Man reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 53 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.0 out of 10
based on 5 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Christian Slater, Elisha Cuthbert, William H. Macy, Sascha Knopf, and Jamison Jones

Bob Maconel is about to have a bad day. Another eight hours of sitting in a dull grey cubicle, ignored by his co-workers, existing in a world where he feels completely out of sync. On this particularly bad day, Bob crosses the line from potential killer to inadvertent hero and in the process saves Venessa’s life. This invisible nobody saves the object of his desire only to have her ask him to end her life. ( A Quiet Man Productions)


GENRE(S): Comedy  |  Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Frank A. Cappello  
DIRECTED BY: Frank A. Cappello  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: January 15, 2008 
Theatrical: November 30, 2007 
RUNNING TIME: 99 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...

75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
With his Jack Nicholson mannerisms extinguished and his boyish features made up to look worn and aged, Slater also makes us believe and care about this guy. A movie this marginal isn't likely to get much notice, but it's one of the very best things he has done.
Read Full Review
70
LA Weekly Scott Foundas
He Was a Quiet Man casts its own perversely funny spell thanks in large part to Slater, whose wonderfully shifty, beaten-down performance is easily his best in the 17 years.
Read Full Review
60
Empire Kat Brown
An enjoyable satire is let down by a third act that juggles too many ideas for its own good.
Read Full Review
50
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Initially shows promise, but filmmaker Frank Cappello (the early Russell Crowe vehicle "No Way Back") gets bogged down when Slater becomes involved with Elisa Cuthbert, a paraplegic survivor of the shooting who wants him to kill her.
Read Full Review
40
The New York Times Stephen Holden
By the time it reaches a weak, ambiguous conclusion, the movie has gone everywhere and nowhere, much like its psychotic main character, Bob Maconel (Christian Slater).
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S. gave it a7:
Bob Maconel is a different sort of psycho killer than the one Christian Slater played in "Heathers" eighteen years ago. As Jason Dean, Slater did a pretty fair imitation of Jack Nicholson when wooing Veronica(a pre-klepto Winona Ryder), the good Heather, whereas in "He Was a Quiet Man", the fading star of 1990's "Pump Up the Volume" gives us his own take of a ticking time bomb; a white-collar Travis Bickle-type who fantasizes about mowing down his office co-workers. Indeed, the moment when DeNiro walks into that seedy motel to save(and impress) Jodie Foster in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver", seems to be this sometimes surreal but ultimately uneven comedy/drama's starting point. Both men become accidental heroes, but only Bob gets to date the woman of his dreams. In the Scorsese masterpiece, Betsy(Cybil Shepherd) gets out of Travis' cab. The fluidity of the film's tone keeps you guessing as to whether Bob's new reality is free-forming or not. In "Taxi Driver", the music by Bernard Herrmann makes Travis' moment in the limelight seem like a dream. "He Was a Quiet Man" is not, by any stretch of the imagination, another seminal film about some sociopath. But it contains a good performance by Slater, who gets nice supporting help from Elisha Cuthbert(as Vanessa), an actress best known for playing the porno star-next door.

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