| 100 |
Christian Science Monitor
Extravagant and funny it is, and also quite dark at times.
|
| 100 |
New York Magazine
One of the sharpest and funniest movies about the music business ever made.
|
| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Shines with a kind of inspired madness.
|
| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Funny, riveting look at the music scene that ruled Manchester, England, from 1976 to 1992.
|
| 100 |
The New York Times
"Print the legend," Mr. Wilson says at one point, both quoting John Ford and laying the foundation for his own often fact-free fabulous fabulism. And this movie is just that -- fabulous.
|
| 100 |
Rolling Stone
Like the music, the film is outspoken, roaringly funny, defiantly sexual and relentlessly in your face. I couldn't have liked it more.
|
| 90 |
New Times (L.A.)
The film is a whirlwind blur, a kinetic thrill ride through the industrial backwater that was one of punk and post-punk's most fertile Promised Lands: Manchester.
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
Amazing, rich in authentic period atmosphere and detail, an ever-changing cyclorama of a movie.
|
| 90 |
LA Weekly
Brendan Bernhard
The movie's a rave and a half.
|
| 90 |
Salon.com
Jeff Stark
This dizzying saga of the '80s Manchester music scene is garish, reckless, endlessly self-indulgent and totally untrustworthy. What a blast!
|
| 89 |
Austin Chronicle
Loud, hilarious, and enormously entertaining, 24 Hour Party People makes you want to toss current FM radio out on its pre-fab, corporate-sponsored backside. And not a moment too soon.
|
| 88 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
So energized by the subject that it overflows with inventiveness.
|
| 88 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Hopped-up and electrifying. The soundtrack is wall-to-wall and propulsive.
|
| 88 |
Boston Globe
Just don't expect the truth. An extremely bent, highly amusing form of the truth, maybe, but not the truth. 24 Hour Party People shares with the current Robert Evans documentary ''The Kid Stays in the Picture'' an awareness that a good anecdote often trumps the facts, but here the cheats are cheekily laid bare.
|
| 88 |
Baltimore Sun
What makes this movie an up is that even when its characters are crying for help, they're also crying for Help!
|
| 88 |
New York Post
This wonderful party of a movie, as totally original as its hero, stamps on a smiley face that will linger for hours.
|
| 83 |
Portland Oregonian
Wilson's account is enormously self-serving and self-aggrandizing, but the film makes his ego a virtue and a running joke.
|
| 80 |
Film Threat
Simply a two-hour rave, an acidic, ecstatic trip through the not-too-distant past in a world called Manchester.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
David Segal
The film has a wry, postmodern verisimilitude.
|
| 80 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
A funny, unexpectedly inspiring story of excess, poor choices, and unwavering high-mindedness, all tied to that quintessential bit of rock wisdom: Icarus did fall, but first he flew.
|
| 80 |
TV Guide
Also featured are countless cameos from local superstars ranging from the Fall's Mark E. Smith to Mani of the Stone Roses, making the film an absolute thrill for fans of the Manchester scene.
|
| 75 |
Miami Herald
Evelyn McDonnell
A strange art-house film, a must-see for punks and nightclubbers, a puzzle for the merely curious.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Jam-packed mishmash of wall-to-wall music, trenchant character study, slick sociology and sly witty-Brit comedy.
|
| 70 |
Variety
A rough, gritty, often scabrously humorous tribute.
|
| 70 |
Chicago Reader
Coogan delivers a winning comic performance as the pompous impresario, but his story has little dramatic momentum of its own; he functions mostly as a pedantic narrator, imposing some cultural significance on the endless party and pointing out more intriguing personalities.
|
| 70 |
Washington Post
Richard Harrington
The manic swirl of characters (most speaking in thick Northern accents that are sometimes muffled and incomprehensible) may leave you exhausted and confused.
|
| 70 |
Village Voice
As a historical document, 24 Hour Party People may be most meaningful to fans whose epiphanies were experienced at least one remove away -- at a different place or time.
|
| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
At times, the self-congratulatory tone makes for smug viewing and slow going. In spots, the pace is so all-exclusive that not every viewer will be able to get up and dance to it.
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
An insider nostalgia trip for graying art punks. It could have been called ''When We Were Cool,'' and it's finally so cool that it freezes you out.
|
| 63 |
New York Daily News
Personally, I'd rather have my brain invaded by flesh-eating beetles than listen to 10 seconds of the Sex Pistols -- Truth is, I've rarely had a worse time watching a good movie.
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