At Any Price 2012

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: This is a brave, layered film that challenges the wisdom of victory at any price. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: If "At Any Price" overstates its points, they are still worth making. And the hot-wired performances by Mr. Quaid and Mr. Efron drive them home in a movie that sticks to your ribs and stays in your head. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Flawed but different, well-crafted and consistently powerful, At Any Price is the best film about impoverished farmers in the economic agricultural crisis since Jean Renoir's The Southerner. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: It's powerful stuff. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Written and played with a little more subtlety, Henry and his contradictions could have been fascinating; as it is, "At Any Price" keeps us at a distance, gazing at characters who never quite come to life. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: An artfully downbeat drama that proves easier to admire than to embrace. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: The dialogue and performances in At Any Price are about at the level of a Founders' Day pageant. Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: A viewer is constantly aware of how much everyone is striving. It's the cinematic equivalent of a stranger who trips all over themselves in an effort to become your new best friend. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Bahrani fills the frame with weathered faces and "At Any Price" feels like it unfolds in something close to the real America. But he wants to give us larger-than-life drama, and his strengths are life-sized. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: It clumsily showcases an environmental issue -- in this case, the corporate strong-arm tactics used to promote GMOs -- through routine interpersonal drama. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The narrative takes a surprising turn, leading to a troubling and, I think, successful third act. Most uneven pictures have a way of fading to gray in the final lap; this one actually gets better as it goes. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The disappointment and malaise of a modern farmer's life comes through, but almost as an afterthought. As Bahrani makes clear, it's worth a more focused film. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: So overwrought initially that the film's late ironies are but a modest consolation that Bahrani does indeed have more in mind than literal and figurative corn. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: Standout performances from Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron and an intelligent script distinguish this drama from writer-director Ramin Bahrani. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: The film hasn't quite earned the grim resonance it seeks. Read more

Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: With its fine eye for detail, At Any Price is also a complicated and revelatory look at the intersection of country folk and corporate might. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: In the end, "At Any Price" strikes a dark, even ghastly tone, and rather suddenly it becomes a cynical commentary on small-town hypocrisy and American business. It's hard to tell whether that was the intention. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: Warm-hearted performances ... are squandered in this sermon on the plain. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: At Any Price is about the slow, insidious corruption of a regular guy, about the rot that grows around him and within him, allowing him to become complicit in a crime of biblical proportions. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Easy resolutions compete with preposterous melodrama. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Maybe the best picture I've seen this year. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Bahrani seems less interested in getting at the heart of a man who has sold his soul than he is in showing how the hard facts of modern farming have literally and figuratively changed the landscape. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: It's one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen, and not in a particularly good way. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Bahrani is a gifted filmmaker. But he shoots himself in the foot by throwing in a contrived plot device that creates drama at the expense of credibility. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: For me the breakthrough in "At Any Price" comes from 59-year-old Dennis Quaid, cementing his character-actor renaissance with what may be the nastiest role of his career. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It may be saying some true things about the new world of cutthroat agriculture, but it says them in a singularly unconvincing way. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Like the small farmers forced to kowtow to corporations, writer and director Ramin Bahrani chickens out. His melodramatic script reduces a global conflict to a Grain Belt "Glengarry Glen Ross." Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Bahrani aims at a wider audience than his previous films have reached so far, but in the process he has sacrificed much of his artisanal, personal approach. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: If the story is a bit all over the place - and what the heck is Heather Graham doing in this picture besides looking great? - the solid work from Quaid and Efron helps iron out a few of the bumpy bits. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Feels like a series of note cards ("father-son conflict," "dad's mistress hits on son") that never weave together to make a gripping plot. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: The fine cast takes the movie as far as it will comfortably go, until Bahrani gets a case of Great American Play-itis. Read more

Chris Packham, Village Voice: The film does have its warm, beating heart. Read more