The Good Liar
Warner Bros. | Release Date: November 15, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 7, 2019
This movie rattles along with terrific energy and dash and the flashback sequences show that it’s actually far more daring and ambitious that you might expect. It’s a great duel between McKellen and Mirren. Read full review
80
VarietyOwen GleibermanNov 7, 2019
The pleasure of The Good Liar, and it’s a major one, is the chance to watch Mirren and McKellen act together in a cat-and-mouse duet that turns into an elegant waltz of affection and deception. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedNov 18, 2019
Together, they redefine rapture. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldNov 14, 2019
As a movie, The Good Liar is just so-so, but as a master class in performance and star quality, it’s a pleasure. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiNov 14, 2019
A taut thriller, The Good Liar keeps you guessing ’til its explosive end. Director Bill Condon’s film is based on the novel by Nicholas Searle, and builds much in the same way a book does. You gotta get through the first 30 pages to become fully absorbed. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 12, 2019
The back and forth, the listening and reacting between Mirren and McKellen, as each of their characters gauges the other and as we mark the incremental shifts and exchanges of power, is pure pleasure. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 14, 2019
Perhaps the biggest bit of fakery involved is that for all its twistiness, The Good Liar’s plot, which can be more than a little frustrating, is as much of a liability as a benefit in a production where the characters turn out to be more involving than their story. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovNov 16, 2019
The Good Liar is a pleasantly playful thriller hiding a seriously shady history close to its benighted heart. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichNov 7, 2019
Pleasant and preposterous in almost precisely equal measure, the film never offers anything less than two all-time British actors having the time of their lives, which makes it hard to get frustrated that it seldom offers anything more. Read full review
63
The Associated PressJake CoyleNov 20, 2019
The Good Liar is a kind of film one wants to love. Such old-fashioned genre movies, let alone those starring actors in their 70s and 80s, are hard to find these days. But in trying to take a simple crime set-up and stretch it into a more sweeping tale of vengeance and victimhood, The Good Liar has to make some fairly preposterous moves to get there, and it doesn’t do a very good job of cloaking them. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiNov 15, 2019
As a whole, The Good Liar is not quite good enough to deserve the comparisons to the works of Alfred Hitchcock it's clearly aiming for, though it is just good enough to suggest what Hitchcock himself might have done with it on a second pass. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshNov 14, 2019
The Good Liar takes its sweet time to pick up steam and pulls its punches in places where it could have been even darker and more daring. Erring on the side of caution isn’t exactly the approach one should take when it comes to suspense thrillers. Read full review
63
Slant MagazinePat BrownNov 14, 2019
An airport novel of a movie, Bill Condon’s The Good Liar is efficient and consumable, if a bit hollow. Read full review
63
Washington PostHau ChuNov 13, 2019
A silly breeze of a movie starring two of Britain’s finest actors, each having a blast playing cat-and-mouse with the other. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzNov 12, 2019
A con-artist movie that is something of a con itself. Read full review
60
Time OutPhil de SemlyenNov 15, 2019
Director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) can do this stuff with his eyes closed, and sometimes it feels like he might be doing that as the plot chugs from London to Berlin and secrets are duly uncovered. But there’s enough visual flair to elevate things above standard genre fare. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeNov 12, 2019
Flashes of violence are effectively jarring when juxtaposed with the chintzy cosiness of much of the film. Less successful are two thudding, lead-weight flashbacks, which disgorge chunks of exposition and quash some of the fun in McKellen and Mirren’s deft double act. Read full review
60
EmpireDavid HughesNov 7, 2019
McKellen and Mirren, sharing the screen for the first time, are exquisitely matched in this slight but enjoyable yarn, which is like watching two magnificent vintage cars in a road race, without minding too much who wins. Read full review
58
Original-CinJim SlotekNov 14, 2019
A preposterous mess of romance-with-secrets, generations-old closet skeletons and revenge, The Good Liar is the kind of fragrant dramatic cheese that Sidney Sheldon would have squeezed an ‘80s network mini-series out of. But the never-before-paired screen couple of Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren consume this cheese like so much scenery. There’s nothing like actors with gravitas slumming, all bemused smiles and droll delivery, even as the material descends clunkily into unintentional comedy. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerNov 13, 2019
Instead of deepening his material, Condon has made an unsuccessful fling of a movie: fun for a while, but trying to get as far as it can by leaving crucial material off of its profile. Read full review
55
CNNBrian LowryNov 13, 2019
The world-class pairing of Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen is the only calling card that The Good Liar needs. Yet even these two knighted performers -- in a rare star vehicle for a pair of senior citizens -- can't elevate this adaptation of Nicholas Searle's book, which clearly wants to be twisty and Hitchcockian but never quite gets there. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 14, 2019
While Mirren and McKellen are as wonderful as you’d expect, especially in the early going when their respective characters are just getting to know one another, even these two legendary talents can’t overcome a convoluted, unfocused and increasingly implausible storyline. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyNov 13, 2019
It’s McKellen’s and Mirren’s. Their back-and-forth provides a satisfaction akin to watching two masters volley at Wimbledon. Unfortunately, the ball these masters are playing with manages the perplexing trick of being worn and waterlogged while also far too bouncy: stodginess and over-plotting is not a good combination. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 13, 2019
And The Good Liar lapses into being “The Poor” one in a movie that’s become both more far-fetched and utterly conventional. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterJon FroschNov 7, 2019
For all its nasty twists and turns, its fake-outs and flashbacks and pile-up of double-crosses, this story of an elderly con man and the wealthy widow he targets feels fatally devoid of danger. Square, tame and tidy as the London-area house kept by Mirren’s primly elegant, creamy-complexioned septuagenarian, The Good Liar is a work of skill but little spark. Read full review
40
Rolling StoneDavid FearNov 15, 2019
Yes, you would watch these two in virtually anything. You just wish it wasn’t this. They deserve something sturdier and far less head-slappingly preposterous, and that’s the truth. Read full review
40
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergNov 14, 2019
The real good liar is whoever convinced Mirren and McKellen to class up such thin and arbitrary material. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyNov 7, 2019
The film’s twists, alas, fall into one of two categories – the obvious and the tasteless – and the side-orders of gruesome violence feel like they’ve been delivered to quite the wrong table. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonNov 7, 2019
Hoping to be a stylish, witty conman thriller, The Good Liar starts out as an amusing lark but fails to stay ahead of its audience, piling on the ludicrousness until it’s impossible to take the proceedings seriously. Read full review
40
TheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanNov 7, 2019
The Good Liar really wants to be either a thriller or a caper. Unfortunately, it has neither the excitement necessary for the former nor the fun required of the latter. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 14, 2019
The calculation couldn’t be clearer. Put two superb performers together — they don’t get superber than Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen — and you’re on your way to making an exceptional movie. Not so fast, though. The Good Liar is calculation from arch start to hollow finish. Read full review
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