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Keane
Magnolia Pictures


7.6

based on 23 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 10 votes
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Rate this movie

FILM:

Claire Dolan

MPAA RATING: R for a scene of strong sexuality, drug use and language

Starring Damian Lewis, Abigail Breslin, Amy Ryan, Tina Holmes, Liza Colón-Zayas, Lev Gorn, Mellini Kantayya, and Yvette Mercedes

Damian Lewis's riveting, visceral performance of a man grappling with the effects of a profound loss makes Keane a complex, deeply humane and unforgettable portrait. (Magnolia Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Lodge H. Kerrigan
DIRECTED BY:	Lodge H. Kerrigan
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 21, 2006 Theatrical: September 9, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	100 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...

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Keane is a painfully specific figure but at the same time a totem, lean and frightening, for a morass of modern anxieties. That might be this phenomenal film's emergent achievement: Its raw hopelessness is its universality.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

This isn't entertainment in any conventional sense, but it's a mesmerizing film all the same.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

May be too much suspense for some, but it's vividly powerful.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Lodge Kerrigan is one of the great, though largely unheralded, filmmakers of our time, and with Keane, his third feature, he finally shows himself to be in full command of his uncompromising talent.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

If Keane is a downer, it's a stupendously well-conceived one.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Keane is played by Damian Lewis. Here he inhabits an edge of madness that Lodge Kerrigan understands with a fierce sympathy.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie draws us into complicity with someone who may be on the verge of insanity, but only because he's living with the unbearable.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Affliction has rarely been so sensitively explored.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

British actor Damian Lewis, in an astonishingly elastic yet disciplined performance, invests Keane with a richly ambiguous, heartbreaking inner life that's only at peace when he manages to form a tenuous human connection.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Kerrigan returns with his best work to date, at least in terms of narrative drive and suspense.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A wholly unexpected and ultimately gratifying experience.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Extraordinary--vivid, stripped, intense.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Keane is a movie you might see on a dare, and though I think it is brilliantly conceived, I wouldn't dare to dare you.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Keane means to shakes us, and does.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

The first 10 minutes of Lodge Kerrigan's Keane have a raw, hurtling reality that's as painfully engrossing as anything you'll see in a recent non-fiction movie, a searing portrait of one man's hell, from inside and outside.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Lewis, from the TV series "Band of Brothers," gives a super performance, but the revelation here is young Breslin, who was in Garry Marshall's "Raising Helen" and M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs."

San Francisco Chronicle John McMurtrie

Taut and suspenseful.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Harrowing but enormously empathetic.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Mr. Kerrigan isn't just playing with our sympathies; he's also playing with our assumptions. That keeps the tension going.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Throughout Keane, there's an unnerving feeling that Lewis is capable of anything, from harming himself to assaulting anyone around him.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

A spare, claustrophobic film.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Convincing as a portrait of a marginal man gone beyond the emotional pale.

Empire Olly Richards

Persevere through the sluggish first two acts and you'll be rewarded with a touching relationship perfectly acted by Lewis and Breslin.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jonathan A gave it a9:
Keane successfully fries your nerves. I was not absolutely happy with the somewhat-ambiguous ending, but it fits the character, whose life story and personality you are never, ever sure about. Thrilling in its own way because we don't know what to expect Keane will do next, but deeply sympathetic because we don't end up hating Keane either and even wish for him to do well.

Hans B. gave it a5:
A good character study of a borderline figure. But that is all. Not very interesting and rather dull. The open end of the film should make it interesting?

Edward V. gave it a1:
This is one of the worst movies I have ever wasted 100 minutes on. There is NO plot. There is NO suspense. You'd have to be a borderline manic depressive to even imagine that there is one. Riveting? Unforgettable? I have come up with only one conclusion as to why critics are using these words to describe this movie and other boring, empty, dreary movies like it. Movie critics are from Mars. Movie watchers are from Venus. If you perhaps think inside your heart that the reason i did not enjoy this movie is because I am not intelligent enough, then I say "Thank God for stupidity!"

Richard gave it a9:
Well, I skipped an employee appreciation picnic, barbecue and all, to see this because I know you can go to one of those any old time, right? But this picture isn't going to be in town long... There was an enormous line of NOBODY when I got to the box office, but five viewers suffered through this inside. It's a great movie, which took courage to write, act, and direct. From frame one until the bitter end, all I felt was dread; exquisite, complete and total dread. I'd never heard of the director, but now I'm an admirer. I won't encourage my friends to see this, but I'll never forget this film. It was a beautiful and astounding work or art. Kafka? Camus? Dostoevsky? I don't know.

Chad S. gave it a10:
Damian Lewis is so convincing as a very troubled man, you can almost smell his stink when he cleans himself in a public bathroom. His scenes with Abigail Breslin are touching, but there's always that edge underneath their bond. After all, he's still a stranger. If you don't like William Keene, you're out of luck because he's in every scene, and director Lodge Kerrigan shoots him in close-up. That big Caucasian head suffocates the frame, but when William isn't having one of his episodes, we can see that he indeed does have a body. "Keane" is a borderline masterpiece, a living thing. In the film's opening scene, William shoves a photo of his daughter in strangers' faces, and Kerrigan's camera seems to mimic his protagonist's exasperated breathing; as like most people when greeted by a manic stranger, they walk away. "Keane" is an absolute triumph, and it's doubtful that there'll be a better American film to be released this year. Thank god Kerrigan didn't shoot this on digital video. He's talented enough to depict the harsh realities of the city on celluloid. By the way, Breslin is better than Dakota Fanning.

Kathy V gave it a10:
Keane is an incredible film created by talented writer/director Lodge Kerrigan and brilliant actor Damian Lewis. The film is realistic, believable, inspiring and important.

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Keane Magnolia Pictures

Keane
Magnolia Pictures