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Our Lady of the Assassins
Metascore
73 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 25 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 25
  3. Negative: 0 out of 25
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  1. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    90
    A scathing, darkly funny political essay wrapped inside a tragic love story (or vice versa).
  2. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    90
    Setting it against the backdrop of a wanton city under siege, Schroeder crafts a film of whiplash urgency.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    90
    As the film, with its haunting score and inspired use of popular music, builds flawlessly to its resounding conclusion, it is accompanied by a pitch-dark humor that grows out of the sheer absurdity of the city's daily body count.
  4. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    90
    It's sad, funny, shocking and completely unlike any movie in a dozen years.
  5. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: David Ehrenstein
    90
    One of the most genuinely shocking films you'll ever see.
  6. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    The film's title is appropriate. A desperate Catholicism flavors the doomed city.
  7. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    88
    In a film overstuffed with tragedy, the most painful one might be the gradual transformation of Fernando's moral and intellectual indignation into a weary, cynical detachment.
  8. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    88
    Plays like a dislocated version of ''Death in Venice,'' but in a dryer, higher climate that features exponentially more firepower.
    All this critic's reviews
  9. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    80
    By the end of the movie, the characters are numbed, while the audience is sensitized to the mayhem to an almost unbearable degree.
  10. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    80
    Couldn't have succeeded had it been cast with movie stars. Its authenticity derives not only from the streets on which it was filmed but also from its able Colombian cast.
  11. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    80
    Schroeder's first non-American film in 16 years feels like a rejuvenation; his adaptation of Fernando Vallejo's 1994 novel has a naturalistic freedom and ease that is both refreshing and direct in the way it tells a deeply disturbing story.
  12. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    80
    The grimness of the movie becomes not only too unbearable, its point is clear about halfway through. After that, everything comes across as redundant retreading of the same perspective. But for atmosphere, great cinematography and eye-opening directness, this movie can't be beat.
  13. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Mark Peranson
    80
    Has its faults, but it's Barbet Schroeder's most relevant and interesting film in over a decade.
  14. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    78
    A bracing ode to the city -- a place of aching beauty and poverty, encompassed by a disconcerting halo of ancient culture and modern nihilism.
  15. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Patrick Z. McGavin
    75
    The director's return home here parallels that of Fernando, metaphorically and artistically. Our Lady of the Assassins is a film of clarity, feeling and electric intensity.
    All this publication's reviews
  16. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Edward Guthmann
    75
    A marvelous film.
  17. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    75
    An utterly nihilistic, harrowingly upsetting vision of hell on earth.
  18. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    70
    Rough, breathless adaptation of Fernando Vallejo's ferociously sardonic novel.
  19. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Jessica Winter
    70
    The performances can be stiff, but a kinetic mix of anxiety, dread, and numbed resignation is always palpable.
  20. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    50
    The intimate love story is overwhelmed by the carnage. It may be an accurate picture of life in Medellin, but it's not convincing.
  21. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Foreman
    50
    Flat dialogue and stiff performances (especially by the street kids, like Ballesteros, turned into actors by Schroeder) don't help.
  22. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    50
    The movie itself IS dull, however. The characters never engage our interest, and the relentless violence grows monotonous.
  23. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    50
    The blend of chic histrionics and ultra-bright daylight imagery make much of the movie resemble a network soap opera with an on-location interlude. It looks as cheap as life is held in Medellin.
  24. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    50
    Full of sacrilegious rant, absurdist affectlessness and pop social criticism, this film plays like an old B movie: narratively improvisational, delusionally pretentious, weirdly watchable.
  25. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    40
    Far from creating a pungent portrait of a society gone mad with blood and greed, Schroeder's movie strives for political points while it's whiffing on simplicities like character, motivation, and believability.
    All this critic's reviews
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