Critic Reviews

• Derek Elley, Variety

  Richard Harris is at his weariest, battle-scarred best...

• Wally Hammond, Time Out

  Neither an effective gangland thriller nor an achieved elegy for a lord undone.

• Mike Clark, USA Today

  Whereas last year's exemplary Sexy Beast seemed to revitalize the British gangster movie, this equally brutal outing merely sustains it.

• Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

  Gaunt, silver-haired and leonine, [Harris] brings a tragic dimension and savage full-bodied wit and cunning to the aging Sandeman.

• Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter

  Harris commands the screen, using his frailty to suggest the ravages of a life of corruption and ruthlessness.

• Ali Catterall, Film4

  Leading man Harris and director Boyd are still capable of invigorating British cinema with style and flair.

• Jason Gorber, Film Scouts

  A fun retelling of the Lear story, taking great liberties with the play's text that makes for a certain amount of suspense even for those intimately familiar with the original.

• Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

  Would get no love were it not for Harris' powerful performance.

• Rich Cline, Film Threat

  We spend so much time trying desperately to get everything straight in our minds that the raw punch of the material passes us by.

• Darrin Keene, Film Threat

  Suffice it to say that Shakespeare's sudden and violent ending doesn't translate well into a British crime drama.

• Tony Medley, tonymedley.com

  Harris's performance is one for the ages, but the others are also up to his mark.

• Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Daily News

  Watching Harris ham it up while physically and emotionally disintegrating over the course of the movie has a certain poignancy in light of his recent death, but Boyd's film offers little else of consequence.

• Susan Green, Boxoffice Magazine

  Without Shakespeare's eloquent language, the update is dreary and sluggish.

• Emily Blunt, Blunt Review

  The film lost me, and the sad twists of unrealistic mumbo jumbo crescendoing into pure mayhem ruined what could have been a thespian delight.

• , E! Online

  The cast reigns supreme, especially Harris, whose regal presence as the aging emperor of gangland grounds the story even as it suffers from narrative overload.

• Dan Fienberg, L.A. Weekly

  A baffling subplot involving smuggling drugs inside Danish cows falls flat, and if you're going to alter the Bard's ending, you'd better have a good alternative.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  This ponderous, heavy-handed version of King Lear almost makes me think it's best left to the Americans.

Read all 17 critic reviews