Critic Reviews
| 80 |
Village Voice
Tender, poignant, and homoerotically charged, this complicated father-son relationship is brought to life by two brilliant actors and a director who's canny enough to give them all the room they need.
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| 80 |
Los Angeles Times
One of the least sensationalistic--and therefore, more unsettlingly plausible--visions of prison life ever transfigured into big-screen drama.
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| 75 |
Mr. Showbiz
A genre-busting film that deserves to be seen.
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| 75 |
New York Post
A wonderfully acted, strangely low-key prison movie.
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| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Buscemi's directing blends hard-hitting visual qualities with great emotional energy.
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| 70 |
The New York Times
Willem Dafoe steals the picture with his comic timing.
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| 70 |
Film.com
It's a guy's film that doesn't just revel in testosterone, though -- it has a more purposeful agenda.
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| 70 |
Variety
Staff (not credited)
In one of his best leading screen turns, Dafoe makes a potentially unlikely construct into a fascinating, full-blooded figure.
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| 60 |
TV Guide
There's something surprisingly sweet at the center of this grim prison drama.
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| 60 |
LA Weekly
What enrich the film are its layers of detail -- moronic racial protocols, turf wars, pecking orders, men as livestock -- the authenticity of the dialogue and the rich range of characters.
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| 50 |
Salon.com
You come away with the sense that you should have come to care (or at least to know) more about its central characters than you do.
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| 50 |
New York Daily News
(Rourke's) nearly unrecognizable presence is characteristic of the odd pockets of talent (and, sometimes, lint) in Steve Buscemi's film.
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