Down In The Valley 2005

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: If the movie isn't exactly satisfying as a whole, it is certainly provocative. Read more

Allison Benedikt, Chicago Tribune: Patchy but powerful rumination on myth, youth and man's capacity for brutality. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The purity of Norton's madness is a wonder. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Both actors work hard to give this disturbing crime story some flavor and substance, but the narrative is overextended and poorly organized. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: An odd, adventurous blur of modern life and enduring cowboy myths. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: In the end, it's really just a thriller, slower than most, with pockets of dead time but with a few extra flourishes, too, thanks to Norton. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: All the problems in this film could have been solved really quickly if anybody had used a little bit of intelligence. Read more

Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Jacobson's story goes haywire. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Mysterious and bold at every turn... Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: With a distant yet affecting performance, Norton (Fight Club, The Italian Job) reminds us why he's often considered among the best American actors, right alongside Sean Penn. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Noteworthy for the poetry it aspires to and the jumbled prose it delivers. Read more

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: The film just keeps circling, never narrowing in on who its characters truly are or where it wants to take them. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Like too many films, Down in the Valley turns on its viewers. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Jacobson has a good eye for widescreen compositions and sustains a low-key note of dread but is less successful in his attempt to graft a neo-Western to a neo-noir. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: Norton sells it, as far as all of this can possibly go. Even if you doubt some of the action, you never doubt the existence of Harlan, a man out of time and out of options. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: I didn't buy half of what I was seeing. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Even if this drama from David Jacobson can't quite cover all the territory the director-writer is looking to survey, it still's one of the most original movies in a long time. Read more

F.X. Feeney, L.A. Weekly: Jacobson has an excitingly clear-eyed, unsentimental feel for the intensity of adolescent passion. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: Along the way, it devolves from revisionist romance into banal thriller. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: The movie turns into something strange and annoying, an attempted blend of a suburban thriller with an Old West shoot-'em-up. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Disturbing but riveting... Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: It aims to be a Badlands for a new generation. It's closer to The O.C. with horses. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: A movie the actors and director take as far as they can until the story bogs down in questions too big to forgive. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The last third of the picture drags along listlessly -- by the end, we feel dusty and worn out, a little too tired to see Harlan for the romantic, tragic figure that he is. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: One of those pictures you root for even when it goes badly wrong. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Writer/director Jacobson does a masterful job setting the stage for a modern-day western, one in which the protagonist seems to have arrived by teleportation tube from another century. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: Strange but compelling. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: Imperfect and overlong, but hugely ambitious and often breathtaking. Read more

Rob Nelson, Village Voice: This contrived lament for the lonesome cowboy means to measure what remains of the old western in the absence of the Old West, eventually plopping its displaced ranch hand protagonist onto the fake Main Street of an old western movie set. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: It's singular, unusual, unexpected, fresh and familiar at once. Read more