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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83
Alexandra
43
Anamorph
35
Babysitters, The
32
Backseat
80
Band's Visit, The
62
Battle for Haditha
47
Bella
63
Blind Mountain
71
Blindsight
47
Boarding Gate
60
Body of War
58
Bra Boys
70
Caramel
54
Cashback
44
Chaos Theory
32
Chapter 27
69
Chicago 10
82
Chop Shop
46
CJ7
78
Counterfeiters, The
30
Cover
49
Dark Matter
35
Deal
62
Dhamma Brothers, The
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58
Fall, The
43
Favor, The
58
First Saturday in May, The
57
Flawless
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx
From Within
44
Frontier(s)
57
Fugitive Pieces
41
Funny Games
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61
Girls Rock!
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57
Grand, The
58
Hats Off
68
Honeydripper
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
67
Jellyfish
xx
Kiss the Bride
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
72
Life of Reilly, The
50
Look
65
Married Life
35
Meet Bill
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
55
Mister Lonely
52
My Blueberry Nights
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
53
Noise
62
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83
Paranoid Park
55
Pathology
48
Penelope
90
Persepolis
62
Planet B-Boy
xx
Plumm Summer, A
67
Praying with Lior
46
Previous Engagement, A
72
Priceless
17
Prom Night
69
Redbelt
79
Reprise
72
Roman de gare
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
50
Sangre de mi sangre
85
Savages, The
24
Sex and Death 101
66
Shelter
75
Shotgun Stories
40
Sleepwalking
67
Snow Angels
67
Son of Rambow
71
Standard Operating Procedure
76
Stuff and Dough
64
Surfwise
xx
Tashan
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
57
Teeth
56
Then She Found Me
55
Tracey Fragments, The
56
Turn the River
72
Tuya's Marriage
83
U2 3D
59
Under the Same Moon
76
Unforeseen, The
66
Unsettled
90
Up the Yangtze
55
Vice
79
Visitor, The
64
Water Lilies
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57
Without the King
75
Witnesses, The
63
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
45
Zombie Strippers
97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
90
Up the Yangtze
90
Persepolis
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Savages, The
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
82
Chop Shop
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Reprise
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Unforeseen, The
76
Stuff and Dough
75
Young@Heart
75
Shotgun Stories
75
Witnesses, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Priceless
72
Roman de gare
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Life of Reilly, The
71
Standard Operating Procedure
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Blindsight
70
Caramel
69
Redbelt
69
Chicago 10
68
Honeydripper
67
Snow Angels
67
Praying with Lior
67
Jellyfish
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
67
Son of Rambow
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
66
Unsettled
66
Shelter
65
Married Life
64
Surfwise
64
Water Lilies
63
XXY
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
63
Blind Mountain
62
Planet B-Boy
62
Dhamma Brothers, The
62
Battle for Haditha
62
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
Girls Rock!
60
Body of War
59
Under the Same Moon
58
First Saturday in May, The
58
Fall, The
58
Hats Off
58
Bra Boys
57
Flawless
57
Teeth
57
Fugitive Pieces
57
Without the King
57
Grand, The
56
Turn the River
56
Then She Found Me
55
Vice
55
Tracey Fragments, The
55
Mister Lonely
55
Pathology
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
54
Cashback
53
Noise
52
My Blueberry Nights
50
Sangre de mi sangre
50
Look
49
Dark Matter
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
46
Previous Engagement, A
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
43
Anamorph
43
Favor, The
41
Funny Games
40
Sleepwalking
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
35
Meet Bill
35
Babysitters, The
35
Deal
32
Backseat
32
Chapter 27
30
Cover
24
Sex and Death 101
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
17
Prom Night
xx
Tashan
xx
Plumm Summer, A
xx
Kiss the Bride
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
xx
From Within
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Ice Harvest, The
Focus Features
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for violence, language and sexuality/nudity
Starring
John Cusack,
Billy Bob Thornton,
Connie Nielsen,
Randy Quaid,
and
Oliver Platt
A wickedly funny thriller about thick thieves and thin ice. (Focus Features)
| GENRE(S): |
Action
|
Comedy
|
Crime
|
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Richard Russo
Robert Benton
Scott Phillips (novel)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Harold Ramis
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: February 28, 2006
Video: February 28, 2006
Theatrical: November 23, 2005
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
88 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

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...
91
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
In a season of bulging Movies Earmarked for Importance, it is almost startling to come across something as unhyped - and perfectly swell - as The Ice Harvest.

91
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
The Ice Harvest isn't a subversive piece of work; it's not making some grand statement about the dark side of the holiday spirit. But what it IS saying in its grimly funny way is that we can't always control the timing of our disasters.

80
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
Its jazzy rhythm and economy of form place it closer to a 1950s film noir, shot through with humor so dark you need a flashlight to see it.

80
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
A funny but genuinely dark story.

80
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Thomas
A droll, dark Christmas treat for adults, a delightful alternative to the usual holiday-themed fare.

80
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
From the cast and location to the attitude and premise, many things in The Ice Harvest are inescapably reminiscent of the Coen brothers. But as a director, Ramis is far less flashy and not nearly as pleased with himself. This is one of the most sustained movies of the year, as classic in its structure as "Double Indemnity" or "No Exit."

80
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
Ramis is at his best when dealing with men facing a soul-defining crisis, and he finds plenty to work with in Russo and Benton's script, which offers Russo's trademark blend of colorful characters and slow-building dilemmas. The Ice Harvest finds them all operating in top form in as dark a territory as they've ever explored.

80
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
This often macabre comedy allows us to doff such civilized traits as taste and decency. We're free to laugh at anything, and we do. Oh, the shame -- and the good time.

75
TV Guide
Ken Fox
How about something a little nasty for the holidays?

75
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Thornton is in great form as the sardonic Vic, whose disposal of an apparently dead body in a trunk is a hilarious set piece.

75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
I liked the movie for the quirky way it pursues humor through the drifts of greed, lust, booze, betrayal and spectacularly complicated ways to die. I liked it for Charlie's (Cusack) essential kindness, as when he pauses during a getaway to help a friend who has run out of gas.

75
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
"Bad Santa" it's not. Bumptiously entertaining it is.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
That may be your lump of coal, but it seems a precious gift to me.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
The Ice Harvest doesn't have much heft or resonance. But as an antidote to the sugary confections of the season, its hung-over cynicism works wonders.

75
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
This isn't a crime comedy, exactly. It's a slightly absurd, minimalist noir, in the ZIP code of "Blood Simple" and "Fargo."

70
Variety
Lisa Nesselson
Fine thesping in the service of characters as meaty as they are immoral makes this material a treat for grown up audiences with an ear for sardonic dialogue.

67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
It never achieves the bleak poetry and tawdry tragedy of the best examples of the genre, but the understated humor is nicely played by Cusack and Thornton.

67
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
It's a rhythmless, graceless piece of filmmaking. But if you have an ounce of misanthropy in your body, a picture like this can draw it to the surface the way a leech draws blood.

63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
This is strictly B-movie fare. It tries to do some of the same things as "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and suffers as a result of the comparison.

63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Openly embraces its noir roots, right down to the femme fatale (Connie Nielsen) who strikes a Lauren Bacall-ish pose in an open doorway and whose eyes are lit by a horizontal slant of light.

60
The Hollywood Reporter
John DeFore
A little more "Grifters" would have gone far here. Not toward making the film palatable for the mainstream, perhaps, but at least toward selling its neo-noir story to an audience already inclined toward such seedy material.

50
Chicago Tribune
Allison Benedikt
The Ice Harvest is not "Bad Santa" redux. It has comic moments - primarily from Oliver Platt, in fine drunken stupor - but Ramis' tiptoe into film noir isn't really a comedy.

50
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Ice Harvest's plot sounds like an antidote to the season's holiday sweetness. And it's being touted as this year's Bad Santa. But the only similarities are the holiday season, the criminal milieu and Thornton.

50
Dallas Observer
Robert Wilonsky
It's a dark lark, no more and no less, a caper comedy full of enough kinky jokes to remind the audience that, indeed, you're supposed to laugh at it every now and again.

50
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
The nasty, violent material has two small beacons of hope - Nielsen as a fair-weather stripper in the manner of old film-noir dames, and Quaid as a scurvy mobster who hates being cheated. With his puffy, reddened face, Quaid looks like a bad Santa.

50
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
An additional change in the film's adaptation from Scott Phillips' novel substitutes the author's original ending for a redemptive conclusion that seems indicative of The Ice Harvest's unwillingness to really plumb the real depths of the darkness it has set in motion.

50
Film Threat
Michael Ferraro
For a comedy, it isn't that funny. For a thriller, it isn't that thrilling. In short, it would have been a much better movie if focused on either/or.

40
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
Black comedy? Black enough, but they muffed the other word. Robert Benton and Harold Ramis, put on dunce caps and go stand in the corner.

40
Empire
Adam Smith
A decent enough little B-movie which delivers some pleasingly weird violence and endless plot reversals. But there’s still a mild sense of pointlessness to the whole thing and the feeling that in different hands it could have been much better.

30
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
There is very little fun in The Ice Harvest, which wouldn't pose a problem if the film had some fleshed-out ideas to go along with the booze, the booty and the recycled plot points.

25
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Goes awry within moments and never gets on track. The scripters and director Harold Ramis have no idea whether to aim for cynical humor, film-noir romance or post-crime tension, so they miss all three targets completely.

25
San Francisco Chronicle
Neva Chonin
What a waste.


The average user rating for this movie is 4.7 (out of 10) based on 27 User Votes
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