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Amateur
Metascore
53 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 14 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 14
  3. Negative: 3 out of 14
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  1. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    88
    Amateur is Hartley heaven, a sharp-witted thriller that takes off into dark and uncharted territory.
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    80
    Just as quirky and idiosyncratic as the Gotham-based writer-director's earlier efforts, this one pushes the spiky humor a bit more to the fore while unfolding a tale loaded with offbeat oppositions and odd character detailing.
  3. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    75
    Amateur is a curious mixture of high art and delicious campiness, and the result is a funny, insightful, and almost-hypnotic motion picture.
  4. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Tim Appelo
    75
    Amateur is a subversive action movie that uses lurid material for its own puckish purposes. [02 Jun 1995]
    All this publication's reviews
  5. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Alison Macor
    67
    Amateur offers the inimitable Hartley style with a harder edge than his earlier films, and while the thriller elements of Amateur prove entertaining on a bigger scale, this entertainment may not endure for viewers not completely committed to Amateur's characters and Hartley's slow-motion storytelling.
  6. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    63
    I found the idea of the plot more interesting than the plot itself, and am finding the movie more fun to write about than to see.
  7. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Renzetti
    63
    Hartley gives us quirkiness in place of connection and usually forgets to put the thrill in the thriller, which is precisely what's endearing about this Amateur. [12 May 1995]
    All this publication's reviews
  8. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    58
    Amateur, the fourth film of American independent filmmaker Hal Hartley, is by far his best - though, in the wake of "The Unbelievable Truth," "Trust" and "Simple Men," that is, admittedly, not saying much. [05 May 1995]
    All this critic's reviews
  9. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Walter Addiego
    50
    The particulars of the plot don't make a great deal of sense, but Hartley's films have much more to do with style, or rather a philosophical refusal to show emotional involvement.
  10. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    40
    Hartley turns what might have been a lurid pulp thriller into a freeze-dried art thing. He squeezes all the juice out of pulp. [19 May 1995]
    All this critic's reviews
  11. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Amy Gamerman
    40
    Amateur is curiously monotone: a pulp fiction with all the pulp strained out. [13 Apr 1995]
    All this publication's reviews
  12. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    38
    Except for a few coups de style, Amateur is a screenful of cool nothingness. [05 May 1995]
    All this critic's reviews
  13. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    30
    If you can swallow one more amnesia plot and one more recycling of favorite bits from Godard's Bande a part, pressed to serve yet another postmodernist antithriller about redemption, this has its compensations.
  14. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    25
    Amateur gives the impression of a sloppy first draft. It begins with a splash, meanders until it reaches feature length, then ends abruptly.
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