Critic Reviews

• David Cornelius, DVDTalk.com

  A messy but absorbing mystery.

• Jules Brenner, Cinema Signals

  Amateurish technical contrivance isn't this awkward, retro failure's only deficiency.

• Nora Lee Mandel, Film-Forward.com

  The world recession has made this suspenseful film bitingly relevant beyond the local problems of the maiming of "The Celtic Tiger."

• Dan Jardine, Apollo Guide

  A real waste of a potentially interesting premise.

• Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine

  The Tiger's Tail, like Cassandra's Dream, prominently features a boat that is both symbol of financial attainment and emotional ruin; it also finds a master filmmaker defying the "show, don't tell" principle with almost crippling cynicism.

• Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy

  If there's anything about the movie that really rises above the mediocre, it's Gleeson's fantastic performance.

• Brian Gibson, Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)

  An almost madcap comic pace battles with thundercloud-building drama . . . The social commentary can be earnest and bald, with the mythic overtones seemingly contrived to tumble O'Leary into the class gap on his arse.

• Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film

  Far from being a roaring, sinewy beast with a lot of bite that the title might suggest, John Boorman's latest has more in common with a lumbering white elephant.

• Anthony Quinn, Independent

  John Boorman's tale of doppelgängers in Dublin would like very much to spook us, but keeps tripping over its loose script and bizarre plot lines.

• Jamie Russell, Film4

  Not quite a car crash of a movie, Boorman's uneven black comedy is more like a fender-bender. It falls into the twilight zone between so bad it's good and so bad it's bad.

• Neil Smith, BBC

  As tigers go, it's all growl and no teeth.

• , Total Film

  You get two Brendan Gleesons for the price of one in John Boorman's Dublin-set comedy, though neither is shown to his advantage in this uncomfortable mix of social satire and over-ripe melodrama.

• Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall

  Despite Boorman's subtle, suggestive direction and a nice central performance from Gleeson, this low-key thriller never quite works.

• Anna Smith, Empire Magazine

  Any potential in Boorman's sinister parable is frittered away with awkward dialogue, shallow characters and failed attempts at comedy. A curiosity at best.

• S. James Wegg, JWR

  John Boorman's self-indulgent "moral fable" has promise ..., but like the dueling entrepreneurs who populate one strand of the narrative, delivers more sizzle than steak.

Read all 15 critic reviews