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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

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Man on Wire
85
Slumdog Millionaire
84
Momma's Man
84
Christmas Tale, A
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
Trouble the Water
83
U2 3D
82
Tell No One
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Frozen River
82
Let the Right One In
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
78
I've Loved You So Long
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
76
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
75
Pool, The
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
73
Frost/Nixon
72
I Served the King of England
70
I.O.U.S. A
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
68
Hunger
67
Black Balloon, The
67
Synecdoche, New York
64
Appaloosa
63
JCVD
63
Eden
63
Changeling
62
Duchess, The
59
We Are Wizards
57
Special
57
Sixty Six
56
Religulous
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
51
Morning Light
50
Breakfast with Scot
47
How About You
47
Choke
46
Dukes, The
43
Tru Loved
43
Gardens of the Night
41
Cthulhu
40
Igor
40
Other End of the Line, The
34
My Name Is Bruce
34
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32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Hounddog
30
Guitar, The
28
Fireproof
27
Lake City
26
House of the Sleeping Beauties
26
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xx
Dostana
xx
Let Them Chirp Awhile
xx
Local Color
xx
Nobel Son
xx
Extreme Movie
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Man, The
New Line Cinema
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for language, rude dialogue and some violence
Starring
Samuel L. Jackson,
Eugene Levy,
Luke Goss,
Anthony Mackie,
Miguel Ferrer,
Susie Essman,
and
Horatio Sanz
A comedy about an affable dental salesman (Levy) and a hard-edged federal agent (Jackson) who are forced to work together and who eventually grow to tolerate each other. (New Line Cinema)
| GENRE(S): |
Action
|
Comedy
|
Crime
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Jim Piddock (also story)
Margaret Oberman (also story)
Stephen Carpenter
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Les Mayfield
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: January 17, 2006
Theatrical: September 9, 2005
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
83 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...
70
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
Who knew Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy would make such a dynamic comic duo?

67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
An action buddy comedy is such an offbeat and inspired notion that it's impossible not to think of it without smiling.

63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Levy and Jackson save the day, and the film. The Man isn't great entertainment, but it contains enough laughter-provoking material to make it worth a look.

50
Variety
Robert Koehler
Functional if thoroughly uninspired movie. Because it clings to the comedy-action template of "48 Hrs.," pic feels like it could have been made 15 years ago.

50
Chicago Tribune
Robert K. Elder
Both Jackson and Levy are better than director Les Mayfield's ("Blue Streak") meandering comedy.

50
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
While nothing in the movie - least of all the two main performances - is especially fresh or original, it does have a few decent gags and amusing moments.

50
Slate
David Edelstein
Passable--just.

50
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Les Mayfield doesn't know how to stage showdowns and chases so they're exciting or funny.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
Laugh? Well, once.

40
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
If it weren't for the running flatulence gag, the whole silly business might be mistaken for slight, clean, fast-moving fun.

40
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
It's the kind of featherweight slot-filler people turn off after 15 minutes on a plane or have on in the background on cable while they vacuum the floor.

40
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
The only characters in this formulaic crime comedy that I halfway liked were a couple of barely glimpsed wives, but the two leads keep it going through sheer determination.

40
LA Weekly
John Patterson
Jackson and Levy strike only damp sparks off each other, and they seem to have been introduced to each other --without benefit of rehearsal -- mere moments before the director cried "Action!"

38
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Yet another screwed-up mess that will give audiences another excuse to shun the multiplexes this weekend.

38
USA Today
Mike Clark
In Roy Orbison terms, enduring this movie is like working for The Man.

38
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Nobody needed to make it, nobody needs to see it, Jackson and Levy are too successful to waste time with it. It plays less like a film than like a deal.

38
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Dreadful.

38
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
The screenplay has no idea how to modulate the banter between the movie's talented stars so that it approximates affectionate and playful sparring.

33
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Most of The Man is as awful as last year's debacle, "Taxi," yet Levy, stuck in a no-brainer variation on Billy Crystal's predicament in "Analyze This," shows just enough noodgy passive-aggression to suggest what the movie might have been were it not shackled to buddy-action clichés.

30
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Unfortunately, The Man makes the mistake of assuming casting is all it takes to make a good comedy.

30
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Crust
In some ways, The Man plays like a sequel to some terrible movie that was mercifully destroyed before it was ever released.

30
Austin Chronicle
Marrit Ingman
Less a movie than a longform, live-action Celebrity Death Match between its leads, this wheezing comedy may herald the death knell of the interracial buddy-cop farce.

25
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Arrives in theaters today with a sheet over its head and a tag on its toe. So to speak. What we have here is a complete systemic failure, a comedy that's not funny, with action that's not thrilling.

10
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
I haven't seen such meaningful insight into the nature of human cooperation since this morning's "Sesame Street."

10
Village Voice
Ben Kenigsberg
Fuu . . . cryin' out loud, this movie's dumb.

10
Dallas Observer
Robert Wilonsky
Indeed, this is the very kind of lame-brained folly Levy and his SCTV cohorts used to mock on their old show; now it's how he makes rent.

0
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
It's just awful. Pointless, lazy, derivative and paralyzingly dull.


The average user rating for this movie is 5.9 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
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