With a Friend Like Harry

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

A witty, frightening, well-acted picture with near-perfect cinematic timing.

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

A steady undertow of sex gives this French thriller a scintillating surface.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A suspenseful and delightfully creepy French drama.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A deliciously mordant French spine-tingler.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

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.

The New York Times Dave Kehr

A strange and funny film, smart, complex and difficult to shake.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

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."

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

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

Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark

Rises instantly above its genre merely by taking the time to develop its characters and scenario.

Film.com Peter Brunette

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.

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

Moll ratchets his suspense with impressive mastery, wringing a maximum of excruciating terror out of the humblest everyday materials.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Very, very funny, in that morbid sort of way that makes you laugh even as you shudder with horror.

New Times (L.A.) Bill Gallo

This is a highly original film blessed with fetching complications all its own and some hair-raising turns of plot.

Time Richard Schickel

This criminal comedy remains deliciously deadpan about the wages of psychopathy.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Appropriately belongs to Lopez. His mannequin glaze and never-wavering smile provide more creepy-crawlies than a thousand quivering violins or perfectly timed thunderclaps.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Often darkly funny and very well acted, it's a pleasingly subtle, Hitchockian thriller with dark comic overtones.

Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan

The film is a small and polished gem that proves that with a friend like Harry, nobody needs an enemy.

USA Today Andy Seiler

Director Dominik Moll knows how to make a gruesome-free thriller and even manages some dark laughs as he turns the screws.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

A startling, suspenseful ride few will forget in a hurry.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

A sleek little poison pill of a movie.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

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.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Fans of the genre are in for a wickedly entertaining treat.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

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.

Chicago Reader Ronnie Scheib

Almost too clever for its own good.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Moll's style is low-key and straightforward.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

As murderous amusements go, the film is mildly diverting, but it's like a faint facsimile of a Claude Chabrol film.