Critic Reviews

• Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times

  The unconvincing but gently spirited "Jazz Singer" update features accomplished musicians in the lead roles; the treat is their playing, not their acting.

• Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

  Everyone seems so genuinely excited to be sharing their music on film that the entire experience becomes a joyful alliance between audience and actors.

• Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

  The film may be hopelessly old-fashioned, but it's hard to entirely resist its portrait of a city that not only never sleeps but also seems to be bursting with melody at every turn.

• Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times

  Mr. Grubin may fumble two romances and several pivotal scenes, but the energy of the streets remains safe in his hands.

• Andrew Schenker, Time Out New York

  The film's wide-eyed view of New York as a wonderland of harmonic diversity soon grows as tiresome as the film's trite romantic shuffling.

• Nick Schager, Village Voice

  Whether to let go and follow your own path is a stock dilemma, and an implausibly hopeful conclusion winds up undercutting the realism of this immigrant song.

• Brent Simon, Shockya.com

  Marked by wide-eyed charm, though not particularly adroit -- a marginal pan, owing to its somewhat lazy and functional narrative. Still, its music, from Philippe Quint and Nellie McKay, absolutely sings.

• Eric Monder, Film Journal International

  "Tchaikovsky must be grabbed by the throat or it becomes sentimental," declares the paterfamilias in Downtown Express, but the character could be critiquing the very movie in which finds himself.

• Dan Lybarger, eFilmCritic.com

  'Downtown Express' is a charming, if somewhat familiar, movie that becomes extraordinary because it has astonishingly good music.

• Joseph Jon Lanthier, Slant Magazine

  The movie's final act tries, somewhat admirably, to consolidate the plot's myriad interpersonal conflicts.

• Mark R. Leeper, Mark Leeper's Reviews

  The film stars two virtuoso musical performers, one in rock and one in classical music. The plot is minor, but the music is a major--perhaps the major--attraction.

Read all 11 critic reviews