Critic Reviews

• Mike Hale, New York Times

  The visual dexterity exhibited by Mr. Mortier, in his feature debut, and his cinematographer, Glynn Speeckaert, may keep you watching if not necessarily involved.

• Nicolas Rapold, Village Voice

  The flashy adaptation of the book by aging Belgian provocateur Herman Brusselmans is as systematically offensive and boisterously vulgar as its degenerate punk protagonists. Or at least that's the aim.

• Ted Fry, Seattle Times

  A thoroughly offensive and often hilarious punk requiem about rape, murder, violence, kinky sex, drugs, destruction, bad manners and rock 'n' roll -- not necessarily in that order.

• Jay Weissberg, Variety

  Signaling a new low in post-modern smug superiority, Ex Drummer tries to pass off contempt as comedy and slanted lensing as creativity.

• Mariko McDonald, Film Threat

  One of those rare films that still manages to haunt you long after you leave the theatre, for people who like that kind of thing.

• Derek Malcolm, This is London

  Hard to watch, and even harder to enjoy unless the music and almost pathological eccentricity takes your fancy.

• Anthony Quinn, Independent

  Women, gays and old people get a pretty rough ride, though given the film's minuscule target audience it shouldn't really bother them.

• Sukhdev Sandhu, Daily Telegraph

  A violent and self-conscious exercise in punk nihilism.

• Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

  Peters out in mass murder and visual gross-out.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  Bizarre, horribly violent and frequently brilliant black comedy from Belgium.

• Jon Fortgang, Film4

  Visually exhilarating but also purposefully - and pointlessly - outrageous. Not for the faint hearted.

• Catherine Chambers, BBC

  The film, so desperate in its attempts to shock the viewer through showing the dark side of humanity, is crippled by the fact that the characters are so thinly drawn they have no depth to them.

• David Parkinson, Empire Magazine

  This grungy anti-musical will offend just about everyone with its attitude towards women, gays, kids, and the elderly.

• Matthew Turner, ViewLondon

  A punk film in more ways than one, Ex Drummer is sordid, relentlessly nihilistic and extremely violent, but it's also impressively directed and unlike anything else you'll see this year.

• James Rocchi, Cinematical

  It's hard to watch. It's even harder to stop watching.

• Jason Gorber, Film Scouts

  Ex Drummer is a mess of a film, a tawdry, bizarre tale that has enough visual style to set it apart, barely, from being a complete waste of several hours of your life.

• Boyd van Hoeij, european-films.net

  Because of the continuous barrage of swear words, bloody violence and explicit sex, distribution beyond its home country will be difficult, but industry professionals should all note the director's name, however: M-O-R-T-I-E-R.

Read all 17 critic reviews