|
New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search
Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Clay Pigeons
Gramercy Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for strong scenes of sexuality, language and violence
Starring
Joaquin Phoenix,
Gregory Sporleder,
Vince Vaughn,
Janeane Garofalo,
and
Georgina Cates
Lester Long (Vaughn) has a firm handshake, a ready smile, and some strange ideas about friendship in this 90's noir. As dead bodies start piling up in a small Montana town, Lester burrows his way into Clay's (Phoenix) life and plays a twisted game of shifted blame and double-cross.
| GENRE(S): |
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Matthew L. Healy
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
David Dobkin
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: January 11, 2000
Video: July 13, 1999
Theatrical: September 25, 1998
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
104 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Germany / USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
80
Film Threat
Ron Wells
I don't want to say any more about the plot, it's just too much sick fun.
80
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
A film that delights by confounding expectations.
80
Film.com
Ted Fry
Script, setting, attitude, and especially casting add up to a smart exercise in dark comedy that's never over-the-top funny, but always engaging for its clever details.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Bob Graham
It's got unpredictable plot twists and unexpected laughs coming out of dark corners. The sharp-edged film also looks terrific.
70
Washington Post
Michael O'Sullivan
Upon this fine mess shines Janeane Garofalo like a ray of sarcastic sunlight as FBI agent Shelby...With her gift for sweet bile, the sardonic Garofalo makes every second on screen a treasure to be cherished.
70
Slate
David Edelstein
The film, smoothly directed by David Dobkin, has a neat farcical structure but is too in love with its overly tight-lipped protagonist and deadpan pacing.
63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The final half-hour contains enough contrivances and holes to challenge even the most generous movie-goer's suspension of disbelief.
63
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Within Clay Pigeons is a smaller story that might have involved us more, but it's buried by overkill.
63
Chicago Tribune
Mark Caro
The movie seems so convinced of its own entertainment value that it has neglected to factor in the elements that make a comedic thriller more than just a facile exercise -- i.e., suspense, tension, heart. Being amused by plot turns is not the same as caring, and Clay Pigeons never inspires you to grab your armrest or catch your breath. [25 Sept 1998]
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Where it stumbles is in the script by Matt Healy, which is often clever, but never quite takes hold.
63
San Francisco Examiner
David Armstrong
The cast's control and Dobkin's assured pacing keep most of the funny things funny and make most of the scary things scary - while maintaining the tricky balance between humor and fear.
60
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
I wanted to take these two characters somewhere else and make a real movie about them...But Vaughn provides so many spooky, hilarious, unhinged moments, you won't mind sitting through it.
60
Film.com
John Hartl
An OK debut effort, but like so many "Pulp Fiction" wannabes, it lacks freshness and energy.
60
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Nasty fun all around.
50
New York Daily News
Dave Kehr
Cold-blooded comedy.
50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Much of the acting is energetically good. Moviegoers familiar with "Fargo" and "Red Rock West" will find this adventure eerily familiar.
50
The New Yorker
Jay Fielden
The supporting cast of yokels commit plenty of redneck faux pas, but the witty script is weighed down by the director David Dobkin's heavy hand.
50
Variety
Dennis Harvey
Visual flourishes (handsomely lensed by Eric Edwards on Utah locales standing in for Montana) are polished but derivative, with too many time-lapse sky views, reminiscent of Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho."
40
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Dobkin, in his directorial debut, seems ready and willing to ply the conventions of film noir in the harsh Montana daylight, but Clay Pigeons never manages to reach the crucial suspense plateaus that noir demands.
40
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
"You've got a sense of humor, I like that," Lester Long proclaims at one point. Well, we all like that, but would it be asking too much to have a little coherence to go along with it?
40
Chicago Reader
Lisa Alspector
Its blurring of the line between parody and exploitation only makes it totally innocuous.
40
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Joe Garden
Perhaps this will seem fresh and interesting years down the road, when the self-aware-thriller genre has long played out, but for now, it's a tired horse that should have been put down in the pitch meeting.
38
USA Today
Mike Clark
The young Pigeon turks who no doubt think they've made a hip black comedy should be forced to see it in a theater of non-sycophants, where only an occasional exasperated exhale signifies the audience isn't dead yet. [25 Sept 1998]
25
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
It's young-Hollywood-driven business as usual in this derivative, nasty, and ultimately empty drama.
10
Village Voice
Dennis Lim
It's never clear, by the way, why any of this is supposed to be even remotely funny...This is the kind of movie asinine enough to believe that the mere juxtaposition of sadistic violence and a jaunty tune on the soundtrack is, in itself, clever.
10
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
If you get your jollies from watching women being shot, stabbed and humiliated, you’ll love video director David Dobkin’s pointlessly grisly, tediously derivative feature debut.
 The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Discuss this movie in our forums |
|
