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80Marvelously involving family saga.
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75It evokes the atmosphere of a Sergio Leone Western, sneaking up under the movie's human comedy and adding a smile.
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Charming family story.
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70Sharply drawn and well-acted.
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70What really separates "Midlands" from Leone's desiccated, terse genre work is Mr. Meadows's doting attention to his characters' decency. It gives a demonstrative bittersweetness to a likable but small story.
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70Always predictable in its outcome, but it still retains a certain charm, mostly because of Meadows's cheerful sympathy and affection for his motley crew of characters.
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67There are instances when the filmmaker tries for Western iconography and settles for ''Full Monty'' ingratiation.
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63Meadows clearly has a flair for working with actors and for depicting the rough-and-tumble of ordinary provincial lives. If he could go just a bit deeper, the truly great Midlands movie just might surface.
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63Just Brit filmmaker Shane Meadows having some fun with the conventions of the spaghetti western.
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63Pure bangers-and-mash realism: a spotty yet ingratiating working-class farce that suggests a Mike Leigh movie with opera buffa tendencies.
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The film's best players can all be found in the supporting cast.
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60There are pages missing from this fable: Meadows reports that his financiers asked him to cut one-quarter of his original script just before production began, and his fondness for long takes sits uneasily beside the apparent gaps in the narrative.
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60Often seems like a Mike Leigh movie viewed in a fun-house mirror.
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58It's an interesting experiment that doesn't quite work.
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50Midlands finds some measure of success in its use of regular, real-looking people -- as opposed to the oddly glamorous characters who turn up in most romantic comedies -- but it's as though the writer used up all the personality traits before he got to Shirley.
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50In the end, Meadows' film lacks the bite it needs to make us care about this oddball trio, endearing though they are.
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50A movie saved by great acting.
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50This movie's just so-so, but at its heart lies a true leading lady.
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It's a compelling and ambitious idea, but one that misfires because of its underwhelming characters and slack storytelling.
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50The sheer novelty of the enterprise is probably why Once Upon a Time in the Midlands has gotten so many rave reviews when it's actually sort of … middling.
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50The story, which feels more like a sprawl of television episodes than a film, is a little tedious to sit through.
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40The complications are predictable, as is the resolution; what keeps the film from sinking into its own inconsequentiality is the throaty-voiced Henderson, who can make the most preposterous behavior ring absolutely true.
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38After 45 minutes of incomparable boredom, the movie gets slightly better when it stops reaching for cheap yuks and lets the actors do what they do well.