Critic Reviews

• Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine

  Wrestling Ernest Hemingway aspires to be serious about its subject. Yet in a curious way this sobriety works against it. Frank and Walt turn into schematically contrasting case studies, and the movie's sympathy for them eventually becomes patronizing.

• Emanuel Levy, Variety

  Randa Haines' sappy, rather dull melodrama about the friendship between two eccentric old men is mostly a showcase for its stars, Robert Duvall and Richard Harris.

• , Time Out

  There aren't really any surprises, but it's a delight to see a movie which idles away without anything more pressing on its mind than people.

• Caryn James, New York Times

  Instead of simply assuming that the old have interesting lives, the film never stops congratulating itself for being daring enough to focus on them.

• Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

  The movie is essentially about the close observation of behavior. Like some of Hemingway's stories, the real action is all implied. The characters trade small talk, and we sense that larger issues are lurking beneath their cheerfulness.

• Rita Kempley, Washington Post

  An endearing buddy movie for the senior crowd.

• , TV Guide's Movie Guide

  Offers little in the way of narrative drive or plot conflict, and what does happen is far from surprising. MacLaine and Piper Laurie are more or less wasted in supporting roles, and pretty Sandra Bullock is given almost nothing to do.

• Urban Cinefile Critics, Urban Cinefile

  This is a film of two superlative performances from Richard Harris and Robert Duvall, who play an odd couple drawn together by their common loneliness as they become friends in the winter of their lives

• Chuck O'Leary, Fantastica Daily

  A deeply moving and wonderfully acted film about loneliness and friendship. This is one to treasure.

• , Film4

  A slow-paced and sentimental film, but still a pleasure to watch as the two brilliant and dignified leads play off each other so well.

• Martin Scribbs, Low IQ Canadian

  Funny, touching, understated. Melancholy, bittersweet, lovely.

• Clint Morris, Moviehole

  Duvall and Harris are as touching, as they are mezmerising.

• Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice

  Portrays the salutary ways in which two very dissimiliar elders enrich each other's lives.

Read all 13 critic reviews