Men at Lunch
Men at Lunch Image
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Metascore
53

Mixed or average reviews - based on 6 Critics What's this?

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  • Summary: In Men at Lunch, director Seán Ó Cualáin tells the story of "Lunch atop a Skyscraper," the iconic photograph taken during the construction of Rockefeller Center that depicts eleven workmen taking their lunch break while casually perched along a steel girder – boots dangling 850 feet above thve the sidewalk, Central Park and the misty Manhattan skyline stretching out behind them. For 80 years, the identity of the eleven men – and the photographer that Immortalized them – remained a mystery: their stories, lost in time, subsumed by the fame of the image itself. But then, at the start of the 21st century, the photograph finally began to give up some of its secrets. Part homage, part investigation, Men at Lunch is the sublime tale of an American icon, an unprecedented race to the sky and the immigrant workers that built New York. [First Run Features]… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 6
  3. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Nick Schager
    Sep 17, 2013
    70
    Given Men at Lunch's compelling argument that the identity of its anonymous ironworker subjects is beside the point—that mystery is a prime facet of its enduring appeal—the documentary's desire to determine who they really were comes across as unnecessary.
  2. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    Sep 19, 2013
    60
    Best of all, we take a trip back to Depression-era New York and grasp its resonance more than 80 years later. Delicious.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Inkoo Kang
    Oct 3, 2013
    60
    Regrettably, Men at Lunch obsesses over disappearing ghosts instead of the records we already have and the history we should know.
  4. The Dissolve
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    Sep 18, 2013
    50
    Just as the documentary doesn’t really have the goods when it comes to solving the photograph’s mysteries, it only skims across the surface of what the picture represents.
  5. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: John DeFore
    Sep 20, 2013
    50
    Cartoonish hyperbole aside, the investigation does have its high points.
  6. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Miriam Bale
    Sep 19, 2013
    50
    The film feels meandering. Not only does it offer a jumble of ideas that aren’t followed through, but it’s also structured oddly.

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