| 100 |
Portland Oregonian
A witty, frightening, well-acted picture with near-perfect cinematic timing.
|
| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
A steady undertow of sex gives this French thriller a scintillating surface.
|
| 91 |
Entertainment Weekly
A suspenseful and delightfully creepy French drama.
|
| 90 |
Washington Post
A deliciously mordant French spine-tingler.
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
Moll, in only his second feature, evokes a sense of foreboding, playing the routine against the unnerving, the humorous against the sinister, with a wit and deftness that might have impressed Hitchcock.
|
| 90 |
The New York Times
A strange and funny film, smart, complex and difficult to shake.
|
| 88 |
New York Daily News
Moll clearly has looked to Hitchcock and Clouzot for inspiration. There are sexual undercurrents between characters, psychological quirks and a murky veneer like the surface of the pool in "Diabolique."
|
| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
The actors and writing lend unexpected dimension to all of the characters, and Lopez's Harry is an indelible antagonist, one who manages to be genuinely big-hearted and evil.
|
| 83 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
From Harry's perspective, it's a grotesque life, a dead end for his new protege Michel, but Moll also shows the sensitivity beneath the sniping and that's where With a Friend Like Harry ... really scores
|
| 80 |
Mr. Showbiz
Rises instantly above its genre merely by taking the time to develop its characters and scenario.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
An insistent, insinuating film -- both in terms of its plot and characters, and in its impact on the viewer -- Harry's effects are small-scale but so perfectly pitched that they never seem small.
|
| 80 |
LA Weekly
Moll ratchets his suspense with impressive mastery, wringing a maximum of excruciating terror out of the humblest everyday materials.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Very, very funny, in that morbid sort of way that makes you laugh even as you shudder with horror.
|
| 80 |
New Times (L.A.)
This is a highly original film blessed with fetching complications all its own and some hair-raising turns of plot.
|
| 80 |
Time
This criminal comedy remains deliciously deadpan about the wages of psychopathy.
|
| 78 |
Austin Chronicle
Appropriately belongs to Lopez. His mannequin glaze and never-wavering smile provide more creepy-crawlies than a thousand quivering violins or perfectly timed thunderclaps.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
Often darkly funny and very well acted, it's a pleasingly subtle, Hitchockian thriller with dark comic overtones.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
The film is a small and polished gem that proves that with a friend like Harry, nobody needs an enemy.
|
| 75 |
USA Today
Director Dominik Moll knows how to make a gruesome-free thriller and even manages some dark laughs as he turns the screws.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
We realize that the most frightening outcome of the movie would be if it contained no surprises, no revelations, no quirky twist at the end.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
A startling, suspenseful ride few will forget in a hurry.
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
A sleek little poison pill of a movie.
|
| 70 |
Wall Street Journal
I did enjoy the movie's mercurial moods -- anxiety, terror, whimsical horror -- and I welcomed its confirmation that the work of the devil includes SUVs.
|
| 70 |
TV Guide
Fans of the genre are in for a wickedly entertaining treat.
|
| 63 |
Baltimore Sun
Critically lacks Highsmith's sixth sense for drawing you into the heart and soul of sociopaths, then jolting you with the realization that things are much worse even than they seem.
|
| 60 |
Chicago Reader
Ronnie Scheib
Almost too clever for its own good.
|
| 50 |
Village Voice
Moll's style is low-key and straightforward.
|
| 40 |
New York Magazine
As murderous amusements go, the film is mildly diverting, but it's like a faint facsimile of a Claude Chabrol film.
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