Metascore
73 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 21 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 21
  2. Negative: 0 out of 21
  1. Astonishing, crazily delightful.
  2. A warm embrace of tradition and boisterous, ethnographically rich local culture.
  3. 91
    It romps along with infectious good humor but continually imparts a sense that underneath all the surreal frivolity lurks a scathing allegory of modern-day Balkan troubles.
  4. 88
    One frenetic movie that doesn't know when to quit -- and leaves you wishing it could go on forever.
  5. The perfect film for anyone who finds the Keystone Cops a little too understated and I mean that as a compliment.
  6. 84
    An explosive experience...and you have to love the movie's rabid energy and lust.
  7. 80
    Kusturica's always masterful orchestration of chaos, coincidence and caricature really pays off as a sweet, soulful celebration of old friends, new loves and the mad scramble of life at the fringe.
  8. Kusturica works marvels with his endlessly amusing cast, and his film has an appealingly free and easy tone.
  9. Made with such overriding jubilation that its coarseness is mostly liberating...well worth admiring for its sheer glee.
  10. There's something almost wearying as well as exhilarating about the perpetual brilliance of Bosnian-born filmmaker Emir Kusturica.
  11. Reviewed by: Rod Dreher
    75
    (Kusturica) celebrates its gaudy humanity in a joyous picture that is his most lighthearted and amusing work to date.
  12. This is not comfortable comedy.
  13. Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    75
    The gusto in the flying bullets, the fleeing lovers, and the flowing music will make you want to hang around until the party is over.
  14. Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    70
    A wild, endlessly inventive romp set in a post-war world so full of machine-guns and hand-grenades that people barely flinch when one or the other goes off.
  15. 70
    It's thrilling to see something this profane, mythic and, most of all, not bored with life, love and the possibilities of cinema.
  16. 70
    An absurdist Eastern European version of "The Godfather," starring the Marx Brothers (and sisters and nephews and...).
  17. Farcical mayhem. A convoluted plot that's easy to follow but hard to describe.
  18. Their shenanigans rarely run short of explosive energy.
  19. The slapstick is broad to the point of overkill.
  20. 50
    Determined to twist every character into an ideogram for vulgar humanity.
  21. Reviewed by: Robert Horton
    50
    There is a point in the movie when this mayhem crosses the line from wildly imaginative to downright insufferable.
User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 24 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 10
  3. Negative: 0 out of 10
  1. AlejandroH.
    10
    It is difficult to describe such a masterpiece. A veritable reflective fantasy over the romani culture.