Critic Reviews

• Emanuel Levy, Variety

  Based on Mamet's experience as a freighter on the Great Lakes while a grad English lit student, Mantegna's screen version is so dramatically inert and artistically shapeless resulting in an uninvolving memory film.

• Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel

  Watching it, you come to understand what it is that Mamet has been true to all these years.

• Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

  As drama, it's not much; as a meditation on language and storytelling, it's a treat.

• Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

  A first-rate movie made from one of David Mamet's lesser plays.

• Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News

  Where Mantegna succeeds is in providing a forum for some great acting.

• Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

  Lakeboat requires its audiences to embrace it as lovingly as Mamet and Mantegna embrace its men, but it's a lot to ask.

• Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

  This plotless film is filled with a zillion little nostalgia stories that are both pointless and irritating, but some stories can also be devilishly charming.

• Steven Leigh Morris, L.A. Weekly

  Mamet's fixation on language is ... more effective onstage than onscreen, where the technical and visual requirements distract from the sounds of the words -- the heart of Mamet's work.

• Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com

  Mamet knows people so well that you can forgive his lack of actual story once in awhile.

• Chris Wiegand, Boxoffice Magazine

  For the most part a lot of fun, with some fine performances from a mature cast.

• Nick Carter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  Viewers learn that these salty guys have salty imaginations and that Mamet's a master at capturing their thoughts in discursive detail.

• Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  Joe Mantegna... brings just the right tone of easy gab and tossed-off tales to this actor's showcase.

• Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle

  'Yeah. It's alright.' 'Good enough for me.'

Read all 13 critic reviews