Deconstructing Harry
Metascore
61 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 19 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 19
  3. Negative: 3 out of 19
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  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    100
    Woody Allen's strongest and most mordantly funny movie in years, even if it is also his bleakest.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    91
    Deconstructing Harry is Woody Allen's naughty-boy confessional movie, a disquietingly candid and funny portrait of a pathological narcissist.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    90
    A bravura act of self-revelation, its vivid portrait of one man's fears, fantasies and neuroses uses a mixture of reality, imagination and comedy to create one of the writer-director's most involving films.
  4. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Elvis Mitchell
    90
    This poisonous, brazenly autobiographical comedy shows off the best of Mr. Allen's misanthropic humor.
  5. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    This is in many ways his most revealing film, his most painful, and if it also contains more than his usual quotient of big laughs, what was it the man said? "We laugh, that we may not cry."
  6. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Ron Wells
    80
    I've never been a fan, but in the space of a couple hours the Woodster gives both an explanation AND the finger to ALL of his critics. This is mean-spirited fun, just the way we like it!
  7. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    80
    Woody Allen is back in sharp comic form, though it's likely that his abrasive black comedy Deconstructing Harry will alienate as many people as it tickles.
  8. Variety
    Reviewed by: David Stratton
    80
    A tremendous, stellar cast is mostly confined to minor roles, but all shine under Allen's assured direction.
  9. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Rita Kempley
    80
    A provocative, but extremely profane work, it is surely Allen's bawdiest since "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex."
  10. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    78
    Then along comes a movie like Deconstructing Harry, which marks the writer/director/actor's return to top form, once again using the stuff of his life to create the stuff of his fiction.
  11. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    75
    It's a movie of moments, some of which are side-splittingly funny. Arguably, this is the most uproarious comedy that Allen has ever done.
  12. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    70
    The film is smutty-mouthed and jumpy and free-associative, and Allen does everything but hurl his feces at the audience. The result is more rambunctious--and more fun--than any movie he has made in years.
  13. Empire
    Reviewed by: Angie Errigo
    60
    Unnervingly, it is both hilariously funny and quite disturbing, with Allen's neuroses and fixations manifested in some shocking ugliness and intimately personal revelations we'd rather not have seen confirmed.
  14. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    60
    A fever dream about an aging, grasping, neurotic artist who brings his disastrous personal life, thinly veiled, into his work and ends up as a grotesque caricature of himself, alienating everyone who ever loved him.
  15. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    50
    Woody Allen wrote and directed this inventive comedy, which has some good laughs but a very nasty edge.
  16. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    40
    Although the performances by the star-studded cast are generally excellent, only Billy Crystal really manages to transcend the dour misery of Allen's script: His witty turn as a dapper Satan is a blessed relief from the neurotic gloom.
  17. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    30
    Increasingly, reviewing the latest Woody Allen movie has taken on the feel of a dreaded ritual, an annual excursion into careless filmmaking, desperate shtick, and vainglorious misanthropy disguised as cuddly neurosis.
  18. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    20
    Deconstructing Harry is a mess: a shambling, narcissistic, sexist romp that is, worst of all, almost entirely devoid of laughs.
  19. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    10
    This runs a close second to September as his worst feature to date--marginally more bearable only because it's a comedy and a couple of gags are reasonably funny.

User Reviews

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User Score
7.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 12 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
  1. J-Shap
    4
    Simultaneously mean-spirited and self-deprecating, Deconstructing Harry is Allen at his most misanthropic. The problem is that it is, in spite of itself, one of Allen's more interesting and compelling dramas, only taken through such a two-dimensionally sour vein, given its characters. Despite having individual sketches that are actually quite funny, this is the Allen movie where all the bad things people say about him are very true.… Full Review »
  2. brentf.
    10
    Fantastic.
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