Bullet to the Head
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: February 1, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
16
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyFeb 1, 2013
Bullet to the Head doesn't try to adapt its star to 2013. It just pretends that we're still living in 1986. And for 91 minutes, it just about works. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 31, 2013
A good action movie, whose title expresses what is, more or less, a recurring motif. It also gives a sense of the film's general attitude toward life. It's a film with no ambition but to get viewers' pulses moving. It does that, and with a fair degree of wit and style. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineGlenn Heath Jr.Jan 29, 2013
Walter Hill thoughtfully regards the pummeling power of weaponry at work. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinFeb 4, 2013
The upshot is a shoot-‘em-up with a lean palette and relatively streamlined carnage, wet but not sloppy. It can almost pass for “classical.” Read full review
70
Village VoiceChuck Wilson Jan 31, 2013
Stallone looks great (even if his face doesn't quite move when he talks), while Hill (48 Hours, The Warriors) brings lean economy to the film's bloody, unapologetic mayhem. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleJan 31, 2013
Bullet to the Head is an adrenaline shot to your movie memory if the blunt, gleefully dumb, no-nonsense ways of '80s-style action flicks are your nostalgia drug of choice. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerJan 18, 2013
Like the amped up comeback tour of two rockers who had their heyday sometime in the mid-'80s, Sylvester Stallone and director Walter Hill (48 HRS., The Warriors) join forces for a hard-hitting exercise in beefy, brainless fun with the New Orleans-set actioner Bullet to the Head. Read full review
70
VarietyJay WeissbergJan 18, 2013
To claim the dialogue is written to comfort the narratively challenged would be mere quibbling, as the picture's chief pleasure lies in its store of funny lines, which Stallone tosses off with genuine brio. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJessica KiangJan 31, 2013
This film feels like one you discover late at night and watch for ten minutes before remembering you've already seen it, and yet we still kinda loved it. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasJan 30, 2013
The X-factors tend to be the script and the performances, and those elements largely betray him in Bullet To The Head, which is a perfunctory exercise whenever Hill isn't busying himself with gun battles, ax fights, and other mano-a-mano confrontations. He can only do so much. Read full review
63
New York PostLou LumenickJan 31, 2013
An entertaining if nonsensical variation on Hill's greatest hit from that bygone era, "48 Hrs.'' Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJan 31, 2013
Bullet in the Head is a throwback to the past with its eyes trained on the present, and it proves Hill has kept up with the times. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 31, 2013
It's junk, and it's excessively violent, which is a given. Approach it as a Stallone movie (which it is) or as a Hill movie (which it is), but it's more interesting as a Hill movie. If it gets this director back into the hard-driving action game, then it will have done its duty. Read full review
60
NPRMark JenkinsJan 31, 2013
The plot fails to deliver a single surprise, however, and the characterizations are thin even by the standards of the tough-guy genre. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichJan 31, 2013
It's pure comic-book malarkey, adapted from a graphic novel by French artist Matz. But the skeletal plot affords Hill the opportunity to go atmospherically hog wild. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghJan 31, 2013
It's good enough for a brainless night of fun at the movies, though your enjoyment might hinge on your nostalgia for old-fashioned dude movies, complete with a soundtrack of wailing electric-guitar solos and a wealth of random topless babes. Unfortunately, it could have been a lot better if someone had taken out a hit on the script. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 3, 2013
Bullet to the Head is bloody and violent but not nearly as much fun as it should be. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTom RussoJan 31, 2013
It's a surprise that Stallone is as funny as he is playing a hit man paired with a cop in Bullet to the Head. He's man-cave witty in a way that his "Expendables" movies have strived for but haven't really managed. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJan 31, 2013
This is a brutal and stupid movie. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerDavid HiltbrandJan 31, 2013
Sly can still fill a too-tight polo shirt at 66 - in the same way Jack LaLanne did in his later years. But no amount of movie magic can make him pass for a lethal and nimble juggernaut. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 30, 2013
An occasionally entertaining, often incomprehensible and ultimately quite average 1980s-homage mismatched buddy action picture. Read full review
42
Film.comJordan HoffmanFeb 26, 2013
Unfortunately the bulk of the picture is cut together like a beer commercial on poorly lit cheap video without much panache. Unless primary colors with a gauzy halo is panache. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottFeb 8, 2013
It's done with affection, so it's hard to begrudge Hill for indulging in a postcard cliché or two. After all, it - like Hill's movie as a whole - certainly beats a bullet to the head. Read full review
40
The GuardianXan BrooksFeb 1, 2013
Even Stallone's rumbling voiceover possesses the drooping tone of a lullaby – like 45rpm vinyl played at 33. And if you think that reference is retro, you should see the actual movie. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla DargisJan 31, 2013
While the veteran action director Walter Hill hasn't done much to enliven this dull, unmemorable material, with its mechanically moving parts and popping gunfire, its dull-red splatter and spray, he has brought a spark of wit to the proceedings, starting with the figure of Sylvester Stallone. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJan 31, 2013
Like Stallone, director Walter Hill is also far from his heyday ("The Warriors," "48 HRS.," "Streets of Fire"), but the old-guy camaraderie behind the scenes is evident. Despite the movie being based on a graphic novel, no one adds extra flash here just to appease the kids. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleLouis BlackJan 30, 2013
The film is a hoot and goes by quickly, but there's nothing here you haven't seen before. Read full review
40
EmpireChris Hewitt (1)Jan 27, 2013
Fun in parts, and Stallone's always watchable, but it's an '80s tribute movie that coasts along on rapidly diminishing goodwill. Beige Heat, if you will. Read full review
40
Total FilmStephen KellyJan 18, 2013
Stallone's shtick keeps it from collapsing into farce but, overall, Bullet To The Head is too derivative and disposable to warrant serious attention. Read full review
38
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJan 30, 2013
Choppy and bordering on incoherent, Bullet to the Head is Stallone's answer to Schwarzenegger's "The Last Stand," an action exercise in "Here's how we used to do it." Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter TraversFeb 1, 2013
I can't detect the hand of Hill in even a single scene in Bullet in the Head. It plays like a Stallone vanity project, impure and stupefyingly simple. Read full review
25
USA TodayScott BowlesJan 31, 2013
Alas, shell casings, switchblades and severed limbs are all that's offered in this vile film, whose sole redeeming quality is that it ends. Eventually. Read full review
25
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 31, 2013
Hill and Stallone seem determined simply to prove that, even in their golden years, they're still tough enough to rumble with all comers. Bullet to the Head exposes that bravado for the pose that it is, and it's not a good look. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 31, 2013
By the end I could have used a Bulleit to the mouth. Read full review
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