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The Good Heart
Metascore
40 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 19 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 19
  3. Negative: 5 out of 19
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  1. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Betsy Sharkey
    70
    Here, the 36-year-old filmmaker is playing around with drama and comedy. And if you're in the mood for a splash of dark drama, a bit of humor, very dry, on the rocks, with a twist, this will come close to satisfying.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    67
    The Big Apple of this evanescent tone poem is an invented nocturnal landscape featuring speechifying eccentrics and absurdist moments that feel northern European in sensibility.
  3. Movieline
    Reviewed by: Michelle Orange
    60
    Kári relies too heavily on the fleeting rewards of situation for the film to come together as an involving story.
  4. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Joshua Rothkopf
    60
    The Good Heart dilutes Cox's gravitas with quirk.
  5. Boxoffice Magazine
    Reviewed by: Pete Hammond
    60
    Odd but endearing, The Good Heart has just exactly that--a good heart--mixed with a simplistic story that comes recommended as a showcase for two fine actors at the top of their game.
  6. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    50
    The movie begins to wear out its welcome even before a conclusion of breathtaking corniness.
  7. New York Observer
    Reviewed by: Rex Reed
    50
    One of the least likable characters (Cox) in recent memory--irascible, but with moments of real tenderness--he's the reason this strange movie takes on a perverse charm that is uniquely its own.
  8. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    50
    Cox has some wonderfully funny moments, but both actors are playing heavily to type.
  9. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    50
    As Lucas's girlfriend April, Isild Le Besco brings a sprig of sunshine into the film's fetid hollows.
  10. NPR
    Reviewed by: Ian Buckwalter
    46
    The movie's two bright spots are Cox and Dano, who perform excellently despite the dull inevitabilities the script forces on them.
  11. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    42
    Cox's character is a living, hissing embodiment of the idea that no good deed goes unpunished. As an actor stuck in a movie that wastes his talents, Cox can surely relate.
  12. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    40
    Dagur Kari both wrote and directed, so he has no one else to blame for so little originality. Neither does his hard-working cast, all of whom deserve better.
  13. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    40
    No amount of splenetic ranting by Brian Cox, a wonderful actor, when given the right role, can salvage The Good Heart from terminal mawkishness.
  14. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    40
    A picture too simplistic and sentimental for art seekers and too rough for general audiences.
  15. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    38
    The actors cast themselves adrift on the sinking vessel of this story and go down with the ship.
  16. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    38
    As robust and clever an actor as Cox is, he can't make Jacques any less of a blowhard; Kari's wit simply doesn't come through in English, at least with this script.
  17. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Mark Feeney
    38
    Cox doesn't so much chew the scenery as inhale it. Dano looks on in awe.
  18. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    25
    It's a strange thing, this type of whimsy. Kari offers us ideas in place of characters, and yet he expects us to see through these ideas to the real-life conditions they represent - and then to respond to them in kind.
  19. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Melissa Anderson
    10
    A sloppy, desultory, depressive buddy comedy the color of beer-infused pee.
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