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The Firm
Metascore
58 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 16 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 16
  3. Negative: 3 out of 16
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  1. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    100
    The result is a top-drawer melodrama, a polished example of commercial movie-making that manages to improve on the original while retaining its best-selling spirit. [30 Jun 1993 Pg. F1]
    All this critic's reviews
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    90
    Rebounding from his biggest career flopflop with "Havana," Sydney Pollack has done an ultra-pro job in giving spit and polish to this star-driven, sure-fire commercial project.
  3. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Joe Brown
    80
    Cruise was born to play company man, and the role is an opportunity to sum up his old roles and transcend them with his most potently emotional work.
  4. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    But with a screenplay that developed the story more clearly, this might have been a superior movie, instead of just a good one with some fine performances.
  5. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Staff(not credited)
    75
    This is a professional machine of a movie that compresses huge amounts of information into its two and a half hours of screen time. But it's so weighed down by detail, it fails to generate any real suspense.
  6. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    75
    No one is going to confuse The Firm with art, but its high- cholesterol virtues-a story that keeps you guessing, a dozen meaty character turns-are enough to send you home sated.
  7. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    63
    Yet the film's most serious flaw (next to a newly concocted fizz-out ending) is that it's not sinister enough. [30 Jun 1993 Pg. 01.D]
    All this critic's reviews
  8. Empire
    Reviewed by: Matt Mueller
    60
    An average movie improved by Cruise's star appeal and accomplished supporting cast.
  9. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Rita Kempley
    60
    Pollack makes a solid job of it, as does Cruise. But solid isn't enough when it comes to thrillers -- or courtroom dramas, for that matter. Solid is great when it comes to office furniture.
  10. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    50
    By the film's climax, following the plot movements has become merely complex rather than suspenseful.
  11. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Vincent Canby
    50
    The movie is extremely long (two hours and 34 minutes) and so slow that by the end you feel as if you've been standing up even if you've been sitting down.
  12. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    50
    The supporting cast provides centripetal force; too bad the center cannot hold.
  13. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    40
    Tom Cruise heads a tony cast in a best-seller movie that is firm at the start and infirm by the end.
  14. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    38
    Director Sydney Pollack zapped out a taut thriller in "Three Days of the Condor". But The Firm is mostly flab, in the manner of Pollack's elephantine Havana.
  15. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    38
    Very little of what made the written version so enjoyable has been successfully translated to the screen, and what we're left with instead is an overly-long (two hours and thirty-four minutes, to be exact), pedantic thriller.
  16. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    38
    By then, the lofty ambitions can't disguise the sad reality - it's long, it's cluttered, and it's trite.
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