Dying Gaul, The

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A small, self-contained gem of incisive writing, superb acting and rich, expressive visuals.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Mr. Sarsgaard gives the riskiest screen performance of his career. Save perhaps for Sean Penn's outbursts in "Dead Man Walking" and "Mystic River," no actor in a recent American film has delivered as explosive a depiction of a man emotionally blasted apart.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Has too many contrivances, but as an act of sinister staging, it proves Lucas, the noted playwright, to be a born filmmaker.

Film Threat Bob Westal

The Dying Gaul is Craig Lucas's film directing debut, and it's impressive. The film never feels one bit like a stage adaptation.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Lucas' beautiful script and a trio of first-rate performances carry the material with an intermittently breathtaking urgency.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The Dying Gaul stays interesting even when it asks more and more--too much, probably--of the audience's disbelief suspension.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The actors could not be better. Sarsgaard, Scott and the luminous Clarkson negotiate the film's razor-sharp laughs and bone-deep tragedy with resonant skill. Lucas' powerfully haunting film gets under your skin.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Exchanging Buddhist mantras like diet tips, they thoughtlessly destroy themselves after destroying each other.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

This may be the best work we've seen from either actor, which is saying something.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The Dying Gaul has the best kind of story in that it unfolds as a series of surprises, and yet every step, twist and turn seems inevitable in retrospect.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

If you cut through Lucas' thickets of self-reflexivity, metaphysical mumbo jumbo and banal potshots at media violence, there are three ace performances here by actors who can elevate and enliven even as mediocre a piece of material as this.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Before it disappears into a fog of confusion and damaging contradictions within its characters, The Dying Gaul presents an ironic, provocative look at what its creator, Craig Lucas, calls a postmodern Hollywood noir.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It leads to one of those endings where you sit there wishing they'd tried a little harder to think up something better.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The heavily symbolic The Dying Gaul doubtless worked better as a play, but the film is worth seeing for its peerless cast.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The film builds into a lurid and suspenseful thriller.

Variety Robert Koehler

Despite a reliable cast led by Scott, Patricia Clarkson and Peter Sarsgaard, the human impact is ultimately lost in a too calculated scenario.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Entertaining if cornball, lacking the cold-eyed nastiness of something like Mike Nichols's "Closer," The Dying Gaul is tricked out with strident montage sequences and tremulous Steve Reich music. It's already drowning in an icky sea of language when Lucas makes a stretch for Greek tragedy and sends the whole Malibu playhouse abruptly crashing down.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Takes itself awfully seriously. It feels a bit like a grudge piece, laboring to grasp at large themes, but it is as trivialized as the capricious world it explores.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Does not go gentle into that good night.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Although The Dying Gaul tries to evoke the pathos of Greek tragedy and the stars strive heroically, there's none of the requisite grandeur in this trio of creeps to make it worth caring what happens to them.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

These are three characters in search of a moral pulse.

Slate David Edelstein

A sour little psychodrama.

Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer

The Dying Gaul becomes so overwrought in the last act that it ends up as pure histrionics.