Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

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

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

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.

When Brendan Met Trudy
The Shooting Gallery


9.6

based on 25 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 5 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not rated

Starring Peter McDonald, Flora Montgomery, Gabriel Byrne, Marie Mullen, Pauline McLynn, and Don Wycherley

Peter McDonald and Flora Montgomery make an insanely appealing mismatched couple in this fast and fresh romantic comedy for movie maniacs. He wants to show her the glories of pre-Star Wars cinema. She wants to teach him her burglary skills. Kieron Walsh directs from a riotously funny script by Roddy Doyle. (Shooting Gallery)

GENRE(S):	Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Roddy Doyle
DIRECTED BY:	Kieron J. Walsh
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: March 9, 2001
RUNNING TIME:	95 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	UK / Ireland

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...

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The movie luxuriates in cinema references while laughing at its own fetishes -- a neat talent.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It's hard to stop quoting from a movie this good.

Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart

A plucky comic valentine for those who love the movies more than their own mothers.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

An Irish lark that blows in, trailing daffodils and the sniff of spring, from that adventurous releasing company Shooting Gallery Films.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

This is only a movie. But a good one. May Roddy Doyle give us many more.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A charmer.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It's a winning little movie about two people who get together, though they have no business getting together.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It has that unwound Roddy Doyle humor; the laughs don't hit you over the head, but tickle you behind the knee.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Far from the first movie in which a fearless woman coaxes the inner tiger crouched inside a mild-mannered milquetoast to spring into action, but it is one of the most charming.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

There's still enough of Doyle's hilariously foul dialogue and outrageous, culture-shocked Irish characters for the film to be a good bit of fun.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Its greatest asset...Flora Montgomery, a flash of blond, Irish fire who makes Trudy well worth Brendan's trouble.

Film.com Tom Keogh

About two lives in which transformation is a constant, destabilizing threat to freedom and sanity. That's a very provocative premise, though halfway through the movie Doyle and Walsh abandon its potential to go for easy laughs.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A too-cute-by-half Irish romantic comedy that's overloaded with movie references that begin with the title.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

It's a movie almost doomed to be called "refreshing," in the way that the word is used to excuse the game but amateurish presentation of a quirky premise.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

McDonald and Montgomery are fun to watch in this mildly amusing Irish romantic comedy.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

If you're charmed from the outset, this is an enjoyable trifle; if you're not, it never gets any less mannered and convinced of its own wit.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Poses as the story of a wild, eccentric love match but is really about a match made in limbo.

Chicago Reader Fred Camper

Director Kieron J. Walsh never quite figures out what to do with the numerous film references (he quotes dialogue, they reenact scenes), and the resulting uncertainty in tone, which sometimes treats the characters as parodistic products of mass culture, undercuts his later attempts to suggest that their love is authentic.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Lacks the perfect timing, luster and true vitality of its predecessors.

Variety Emanuel Levy

Intermittently funny movie. Almost every scene recreates or alludes to a Hollywood or foreign classic.

Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark

McDonald makes for an appealingly befuddled bloke, and the sprightly Montgomery would turn any blighter's head. In a better movie, we'd care about what happened to them.

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

Struggles to achieve a giddy eccentricity that never fully emerges.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Trudy is really the only character with the "Barrytown" zest, and Montgomery throws herself into the role with unselfconscious abandon. She makes the screen crackle with energy.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's the type of film that begs to be called “charming” and by doing so instead ends up grating.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Doyle loves bad jokes and his story has no rhyme or reason, dissolving in its last third into a bungled heist and jailhouse face-off.

The average user rating for this movie is 9.6 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Donald Hurst gave it a9:
This is funny and romantic movie that leaves you smiling for one hour up to one day,depending on how wide your romantic streak is.L have seen it 4or 5 times now and enjoy it every time.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page

When Brendan Met Trudy The Shooting Gallery

When Brendan Met Trudy
The Shooting Gallery