Foxcatcher 2014

Wesley Morris, Grantland: You want to know where it's headed. But the movie is so chiseled down and sculpted that even once it gets there (you know when), it's unclear that it's earned it. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Ponderous, emotionally chilly Oscar bait. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: As a character study "Foxcatcher" is mesmerizing, eerie and unpredictably weird. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: It's an amalgam of dramatic all-American themes including ambition, paranoia, greed and the ice cubes in the blood that fuel the ruthless pursuit of success in the competitive world of sports. Color it hair-raising. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: In more ways than one, "Foxcatcher" is a movie-an enthralling enigma of a movie-about control. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Watch this film for the performances: Tatum and Ruffalo finding new ground in familiar personas; Carell immersing himself into the mindset of a troubled man ... Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum give superb performances in Bennett Miller's powerfully disturbing true-crime saga. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: Within this vacuum of malaise, fine performers struggle valiantly to breathe life into their roles. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Carell is immersed in the role, completely convincing. Tatum also is outstanding. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: We expect expert acting from Ruffalo, and we get it, but the secret hero of "Foxcatcher" - and the performance you keep coming back to - is Channing Tatum as Mark, a lost boy in the skin of a brute. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The fatherhood issues fueling the tension among Mark (Channing Tatum), Dave (Mark Ruffalo), and du Pont (a creepy, completely unrecognizable Steve Carell) are muted but powerfully realized. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: At its core, "Foxcatcher" grapples, bluntly, with the subjects of class and money, and what some people do when, to quote a line from "Psycho," they can't buy off their own unhappiness. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: It's rare to see an American movie that explores, let alone acknowledges, the class system in this country, or one that gets so far inside the abyss of the ethic that drives so many men to succeed -- and to implode when they don't. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Director Bennett Miller ("Capote," "Moneyball") has a fascinating story here and he knows it. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: It's too bad then that the film...doesn't live up to Carell's memorable performance. As chilly as du Pont's mansion on a winter's night, Foxcatcher never quite comes together. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: Like du Pont himself, Foxcatcher draws us in without really allowing us to get under its skin. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, Film.com: A thought-provoking and solid piece of work. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: A superbly modulated study of a twisted mind with a career-changing performance by Steve Carell. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: A despairing, intentionally disturbing film that draws us into a maelstrom of desperate emotions, it holds up a dark mirror to the American dream and does not like what it sees. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: The pieces of something important are here - there's ego and greed and desperation, the essential ingredients of the American tragedy - but none of it fits together. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: Pretty-boy Tatum impresses in every way. While it might not be a stretch for the strapping actor to play an athlete, it is a revelation to see how much he physically transforms into the hulking wrestler ... Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Foxcatcher is too cold of a movie to love, but that chilliness is intentional and transfixing, a parable about the darkest corners of the minds of damaged men that dares to whisper instead of shout. Read more

David Thomson, The New Republic: It's understandable that Bennett Miller should have been fascinated by the du Pont-Schultz case and wanted to make a film from it. But sometimes the defense of "based on a true story" evades both the real facts and their fictional potential. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: The year's best cast, including a phenomenal Carell, makes up for slow pacing in the latest drama from the director of "Capote." Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: There is plenty here to draw and hold the eye. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's about manhood and about lost men, about people needing to find something, anything, at any cost. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: Punishingly long, the movie insists that viewers spend more than two over-deliberate hours with a man whose pathology could be sketched in a few minutes. In sports, what Foxcatcher does is called "running out the clock." Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: Miller uses three superb performances to take us deep into a privileged world where the choreographed struggle of wrestling mixes toxically with the psychological struggles of familial disappointment. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Simultaneously understated and grippingly edgy, this is an arresting examination of naivete, mismatched worlds and old-fashioned American oddness. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Beautifully acted and impeccably mounted, it is light on historical details and heavy on atmosphere, character and chintz. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Even if you don't know the details of this real-life, late-20th-century tragedy, director Bennett Miller's masterfully observed psychological study is imbued with a sense of an inevitable, catastrophic meltdown. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Foxcatcher isn't afraid of venturing into territory avoided by most sports-related motion pictures. This isn't an inspirational film; in fact, quite the opposite is true. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Steve Carell offers a tour de force of slow-burning menace. Foxcatcher, one of the year's very best films, exposes the diseased underbelly of American exceptionalism and knocks the ground out from under you. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: "Foxcatcher" is a gripping yarn all the way through, even if we're not entirely sure what the point is. Read more

Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: [Miller] is equally adept at portraying the peculiarities of wrestling here, and how those physical moves -- beautifully choreographed and executed -- sync with deeper psychological currents. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The story here may have been worth a movie, but it's so diluted over a long and repetitive 134 minutes that's it's really hard to tell. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Miller (who in his previous two films, Capote and Moneyball, showed a similar interest in the power machinations of lonely, obsessive outsiders) doesn't need a lot of dialogue or backstory to create a haunting mood of tension and menace. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Foxcatcher" is a warped, oppressive landmark. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: If you're willing to be thrown for a loop, you're in good hands with this medal-worthy cast and crew. Read more

Jon Frosch, The Atlantic: If this restrained '80s-set drama largely works despite pacing problems and all-too-readable thematic and psychological arcs, it's thanks to the superb trio of actors. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: Foxcatcher is among the best movies of the year, but ultimately it seems one better suited for awards than for audiences. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: The triumph of Foxcatcher is not in the subject but in its art. The clear-eyed compassion and moral intelligence of Miller's film brings sense to the senseless, and finds the human pulse behind the tabloid shock. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: What Miller and his team have wrought with Foxcatcher is a spellbinding portrait of desire and loneliness, which so often manifests itself in hollow victories and violent acts. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: There's just no life in the film: aiming for a tone of studied foreboding, Bennett Miller instead sucks all the energy from his story. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Once Miller lays all his cards on the table ... you realize you haven't been watching people struggling with the very real temptations of unchecked privilege, so much as fumbling blindly in a glib, gloomy satire of American exceptionalism. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Foxcatcher might just be the feel-bad movie of the year. But it's so well-acted that audiences won't want to miss its dark, chilling yet restrained story. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The movie's take at times is fascinating. But it's basically one long, sick joke played at half speed. It's a ponderous, sick joke. Read more