- Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corporation (MGM)
- Release Date: Apr 25, 2003
- Critic Score
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91Turns out to be a supple, intriguing, and beautifully staged movie. It features Dillon, in his most forceful performance since ''Drugstore Cowboy.''
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80Overall, Dillon has scored at the helm. Wholly engrossing his film is not, but a valiant first feature it is.
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75Between the Caan and Dillon characters there are atmosphere, desperation and romance, and, at the end, something approaching true pathos.
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75An exotic throwback to the kind of movies that John Huston used to make, where on-the-lam expatriates, tubby guys with tinny accents, and sinister locals convene in a ramshackle but seductive foreign burg -- and corruption, conflict and come-ons from a sultry female or two ensue.
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75There's a way to love City of Ghosts, and that's to watch it not as a story that should add up to something, but as a series of little episodes with their own specialness and integrity.
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75After all of these years playing smug street thugs, cocky idiots and patsies, can you blame Dillon for giving himself an elegant girl (Natascha McElhone), a devoted guardian angel, and a little redemption?
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70Great on atmosphere and less good on everything else. That’s not entirely a knock.
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70For his atmospheric debut as a feature director, the actor Matt Dillon has cast himself as a guy in need of saving. It's a nice fit.
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70Richly atmospheric and suspenseful.
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70This is very much the work of a cinephile, calling to mind such middle-period Orson Welles jumbles as "The Lady From Shanghai" and "Mr. Arkadin" as well as dozens of other movies I only half remember, a familiarity that's essential to its charm.
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67A bit of exotic neo-noir, clunky in parts and long, but often engaging and artfully atmospheric as well.
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63In some ways it's not a film that surprises us much. But it's a notable directorial debut anyway -- smartly written, very well cast and skillfully done.
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60This has the unmistakable feel of a vanity project about it, which makes it a little tough to take either Dillon or the film seriously.
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60Despite a name cast, with Dillon playing an insurance crook, pic is holed by a plot-heavy script that's unsatisfying at a character level and plays like a cut-down version of a much longer, more ambitious saga.
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60Entertaining when it's really lurid, and Gerard Depardieu is something to behold as the proprietor of a broken-down hotel. He's a spectacular ruin in his own right.
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60A triumph of place over sense.
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50The film has plenty of shortcomings, but it's fun to see Caan back in action.
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50The hand-held camera is much too insinuating for what is essentially a story we have seen many times before. And the cuts and transitions are dizzyingly abrupt.
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50A Southeast Asian thriller that positively reeks of atmosphere - but is woefully lacking in narrative credibility or character development.
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50It's an actor's film, all right -- peppered with rich supporting performances but unconvincing in the telling.
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50If you feel you might already have seen City of Ghosts, but can't quite place it, you'd be forgiven. Hollywood, never afraid of working a cliché to death, has turned out dozens of "City of . . ." films over the years.
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50Dillon makes an assured directing debut, neither indulging in unnecessary stylistic flourishes nor allowing scenes to run too long, a tendency in actors-turned-director.
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50Has enough atmosphere for three films, enough colorful grotesques for several more, and not enough of a script for one.
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50Musters gobs of atmosphere and touristy menace without attending much to story or character.
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40Dillon doesn't yet possess the directorial chops to give his story the necessary snap; the action too often feels poky and muffled. But he does have a strong sense of place, and the movie's almost worth seeing just for Jim Denault's exquisite cinematography.
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30The story, a half-baked one about treachery and greed, meanders to an unsatisfactory ending with a punch line that, well, doesn't punch very hard.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 5
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Mixed: 2 out of 5
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Negative: 0 out of 5
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JonathanN.9
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PaulB.9