Gingerbread Man, The

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Branagh, chewing on a plummy Georgia accent, makes the divorced, boozing, and womanizing Magruder a smug yet touchingly vulnerable legal player.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

With unexpected success, Robert Altman plays a John Grisham mystery in a seductive new key.

Slate David Edelstein

A fascinatingly strange and chaotic ballet set to familiar noir motifs.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The most stylish and original John Grisham story on film.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It's all atmospheric, quirky and entertaining: the kind of neo-noir in which old-fashioned characters have updated problems.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

There's great pleasure in watching a movie in which the director has thought out everything beforehand.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The result is an entertaining and sporadically engrossing two hours.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Branagh is appealing here in the way we remember from movie heroes of the '30s: cynical, wisecracking and wised-up.

Film Threat Ron Wells

Best of all, Robert Downey Jr., as Rick's seedy private eye provides a little comic relief at his own expense.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

One of those movies that's great fun to watch, even if it decomposes more totally in your mind with each step out of the auditorium.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

The trouble is that the picture is far from over when suddenly we find ourselves watching another movie -- a punishing, overly complex melodrama in which the Gingerbread Man receives his comeuppance.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

And, in a pointless riffing on the title, there are ginger kitties galore -- this flick has enough cats to launch a Broadway musical.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The acting is also solid, starting with Branagh's believable Georgia accent.

Variety Todd McCarthy

There is a trumped-up quality to the action climaxes that is disappointingly perfunctory, and the story's final revelation is simultaneously far-fetched and unsurprising.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Between Magruder's oily schmoozing and the camera-ready combo of Spanish moss and constant rain, he and cinematographer Changwei Gu whip up some amazing atmosphere.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Joshua Klein

All accusatory fingers should be pointed at director Robert Altman, who further drains his reputation surplus with this unoriginal and uninteresting piece of exploitation.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

The lesson of this barely stylish crime thriller is that a dull story is not improved by withholding information about characters' motives from the audience as long as possible.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Built on one of those particularly ludicrous plots in which, just before the end, we are meant to believe that a long succession of coincidences was really a diabolical scheme. [23 Feb 1998, p. 24]