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91With an outstanding screenplay by Brian Koppelman and disciplined direction by Koppelman and David Levien, a story that could have been generic (or worse, scented with flowery bulls---) turns into a precise, honest, and affecting drama.
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90It's Douglas' movie - and you've got a fine movie.
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90A sharp, small-scale comedy of male misbehavior that turns out to be one of this dreary spring’s pleasant cinematic surprises.
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88Douglas plays Ben as charismatic, he plays him shameless, he plays him as brave, and very gradually, he learns to play him as himself. That's the only role left.
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80A truly impressive portrait of self-destructive, smooth-talking alpha males, and a testament to an actor who waltzes across that Peter Pan–syndrome tightrope with the greatest of sleaze.
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80Solitary Man is funny and absorbing, and it features a lead performance by Michael Douglas that's both hugely entertaining in itself, and fascinating for the way it illuminates the actor's long, colorful career.
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80It’s smoothly written and smartly paced, and Michael Douglas is riveting.
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80A movie of no small generosity: It offers audiences the pleasures of a screenplay whose every acerbic line is firmly rooted in character, and it hands Michael Douglas one of his best roles in years.
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75Douglas never makes a false move, delivering a tour de force in human weakness.
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75Still, it's a pleasant surprise about an unpleasant guy brought to life by an ingratiating paradox, a movie star who has turned into a wily character man.
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75Superb as an auto salesman who sinks deeper and deeper into disgrace in Solitary Man, Douglas' juiciest vehicle since "Wonder Boys."
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75Solitary Man is a wafer-thin film with a river-deep, mountain-high performance from Douglas.
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75What joy it is to watch the man (Douglas) slime himself on camera.
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75Too shapeless and cursorily plotted to fully work as a story, but Koppelman and his co-director, David Levien, generously surround the hero with reliable actors doing solid work; if you can get past the catastrophe of Ben’s behavior, the film’s a genuine pleasure.
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75Solitary Man gives Douglas a chance to act, not merely posture or show off for the camera. It's some of the finest, least forced work he has done in years.
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75Solitary Man makes too good on its title – it’s a fascinating character study isolated within a mediocre film.
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75Perhaps best appreciated as a character study -- about a character some moviegoers might prefer to avoid. Still, it's a smart, funny film that flirts with the edge.
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75Solitary Man comes on the heels of last year's "A Serious Man" and "A Single Man," so it's small wonder that confusion reigns. But this film, co-directed by David Levien and Brian Koppelman (who also wrote the screenplay), is the best of the three.
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75The second movie nestled within Solitary Man--the one that doesn’t show up often enough--is about a man of rare eloquence and honesty, sharing his views on salesmanship and sex with anyone who’ll listen.
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70The film courageously shows its reprobate hero sliding further, not redeeming himself.
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70David Levien codirected; the fine supporting cast includes Richard Schiff, Jesse Eisenberg, and Danny DeVito.
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67In trying to make Kalmen's story unique, the film inadvertently exposes him as the most typical sufferer of midlife crises you could imagine.
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67For the literal-minded, there’s an added bonus: Johnny Cash singing Solitary Man over the opening credits.
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65The best scenes in Solitary Man find Douglas at his most charming, dispensing nuggets of wisdom to whomever will listen. His may not be an altogether honorable life, but it's a life in full.
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65As a character study Solitary Man, like Ben, has no center. What he amounts to is a pretty consistent set of attitudes and behaviors which, while shocking, are not all that interesting.
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60Michael Douglas in Solitary Man, has all the tools of the man who plays him at his disposal. At times in this often engaging, occasionally meandering movie, that's enough to score.
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50This attractive cast may help get an audience, but they will surely puzzle over such a downward-spiraling story that lacks inner logic.
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50The makers of “Wonder Boys,” Douglas’s finest hour, did more to maintain their distance, and their patience, and Solitary Man feels a touch small and sour by comparison. That said, its litany of character studies is more engaging than most of what you will see this summer.
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40Notwithstanding Steven Soderbergh's name among the nine credited producers, this is strictly mid-level assembly line product, designed to ride entirely on the modest marquee value of second-tier or past-prime stars.
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40The actors are all charged up, too; there’s just nowhere in this script for them to go.