Critic Reviews
| 100 |
The New York Times
The reason the film prompts laughter, and finally elation, is not because it's jolly or has any feel-good words to live by. It's because of the utterly demonic skill with which these foulmouthed characters carve one another up in futile attempts to stave off disaster.
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| 100 |
Rolling Stone
The pleasure of this unique film comes in watching superb actors dine on Mamet's pungent language like the feast it is.
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| 100 |
Entertainment Weekly
The movie version, directed with unobtrusive precision by James Foley, stays amazingly true to the play's feisty spirit.
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| 100 |
Chicago Reader
All-expert cast.
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| 90 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Gets most of its legs from the acting and the dialogue, which has such a rhythmic grace that scenes from the movie can be played and replayed with no loss of thump.
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| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Mamet's dialogue has a kind of logic, a cadence, that allows people to arrive in triumph at the ends of sentences we could not possibly have imagined. There is great energy in it. You can see the joy with which these actors get their teeth into these great lines.
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| 80 |
TV Guide
Staff (Not Credited)
A searing showcase for a remarkable ensemble cast.
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| 80 |
Washington Post
All the performances are exceptional.
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| 75 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Christopher Harris
It's blackly comic - though the humour creeps up on you slowly, and you're seldom sure if you should really be laughing.
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| 70 |
Dallas Observer
The directing's a bit obtrusive, but the script and the acting gets to the heart of Mamet's glorious obsession with macho B.S.
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| 70 |
Variety
But it doesn't quite all come together here as it did onstage, and relentless scabrousness, heavy claustrophobia and a vaguely dated feel are among the elements that will keep mainstream audiences away.
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| 60 |
Washington Post
There is no evidence of life outside the immediate world of the movie.
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| 60 |
The New Yorker
Michael Sragow
Hammers away at the plot so relentlessly that you can feel the nails entering the back of your skull.
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| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
Kathleen Maher
Interesting to watch like well-performed gymnastics but it never really connects.
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