| 90 |
Washington Post
Richard Harrington
Mesmerizing art-noirish thriller.
|
| 88 |
Charlotte Observer
Plays out like a sprinter competing in his first distance race: It bursts forth with tremendous energy, sustains itself for quite a while, loses steam near the end but finishes ahead of most of the pack.
|
| 83 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo creates the same world of devils and innocents that grounds so much of Spain's modern, seeped-in-Satanic-evil horror, recast in a secular cinematic vocabulary.
|
| 80 |
LA Weekly
The story is bound together with gaming set pieces that are strange, inventive and mesmerizing.
|
| 80 |
Variety
Jonathan Holland
A self-aware, intriguing and technically accomplished fantasy thriller firmly in the Hollywood tradition, Intact has a confidence and expertise not seen from a Spanish tyro since Alejandro Amenabar's "Thesis" (1996).
|
| 80 |
Los Angeles Times
A sharp brainteaser of a film, a compelling mind game you compulsively play along with.
|
| 80 |
The New York Times
The latest movie from Spain to use the conventions of the thriller to explore knotty and fascinating philosophical questions.
|
| 75 |
Portland Oregonian
Effectively thrilling.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
The story of this Spanish thriller is weak in psychological credibility but strong in suspense, novelty, and imagination.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Intriguing, provocative stuff.
|
| 70 |
Film Threat
Devilishly clever and boasting a killer finale, Intacto is this year's "Memento" -- only Spanish.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
Intriguing and stylish.
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
Somewhere in this broody ''Twilight Zone''-ish story about magical thinking (and the lure, to filmmakers, of garish casino culture) is a provocative and maybe even shocking thought on the Holocaust as a crapshoot.
|
| 63 |
New York Daily News
First-time feature director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's dark, complex allegory about luck, chance and fate is one of the year's most morbidly fascinating foreign films.
|
| 63 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Shot mostly at night, in high-contrast images, punctuated by rock-video collages, Intacto is nothing if not hip, but its questions are more coffee-shop hypothetical than genuinely profound.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Sun-Times
I admired Intacto more than I liked it, for its ingenious construction and the way it keeps a certain chilly distance between its story and the dangers of popular entertainment.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
The movie pits fortune against destiny and has an enigmatic old time splitting the difference.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Tribune
Mix of stylish action and meta-musings, provides plenty of confusing, satisfying surprises, though it could have used more tightness and punch.
|
| 63 |
Miami Herald
Depending on your personal tastes, Intacto will either be an ambitious concoction of cerebral science-fiction or a towering pile of nonsense. The truth lies somewhere in between.
|
| 60 |
Washington Post
Consistently absorbing -- thanks in large part to strong performances from the actors -- but not particularly rewarding.
|
| 40 |
Village Voice
It's a shame that, somewhere in his mystagogical handstanding, Fresnadillo forgot the real world.
|
| 40 |
TV Guide
Fresnadillo's film is little more than a gloomy and attenuated Twilight Zone episode, reminiscent of Alex Cox's portentous "The Winner" (1997) without the truly breathtaking conclusion.
|
| 25 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Convoluted.
|
| 25 |
New York Post
A convoluted, pointless thriller that wastes the considerable talent of Max von Sydow.
|
| 20 |
Chicago Reader
The film's a swell way of torturing yourself for 108 minutes.
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