Full Frontal 2002

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: If Soderbergh's name weren't attached to this project, I'd swear it was by some recent film-school grad who hadn't progressed beyond Navel Gazing 101. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Despite the complicated trappings -- a film within a film within a film, shot both on film and video -- Full Frontal is mostly a pedestrian look at sex, race, and desperation in the movie business. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: It is initially confusing, willfully so, and Soderbergh takes obvious delight in teasing the viewer and upsetting his or her preconceptions, breaking down the wavery wall between movies and real life. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: What's surprising about Full Frontal is that despite its overt self-awareness, parts of the movie still manage to break past the artifice and thoroughly engage you. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Full Frontal is like the 'Special Features' disc of the DVD without the original movie. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: When a set of pre-shooting guidelines a director came up with for his actors turns out to be cleverer, better written and of considerable more interest than the finished film, that's a bad sign. A very bad sign. Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Cineasts will revel in those visual in-jokes, as in the film's verbal pokes at everything from the likes of Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein's bluff personal style to the stylistic rigors of Denmark's Dogma movement. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: A weird little movie that's amusing enough while you watch it, offering fine acting moments and pungent insights into modern L.A.'s show-biz and media subcultures. But it doesn't leave you with much. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Full Frontal, which opens today nationwide, could almost be classified as a movie-industry satire, but it lacks the generous inclusiveness that is the genre's definitive, if disingenuous, feature. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Those who enjoy experiment may be happy here -- director Steven Soderbergh, even at his most mystifying, is rarely dull, some of the performances are terrific, and the movie's likely to fuel some intriguing late-night debates. Watch your step, though. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Smart, fun, intricate and full of itself in a wonderful way. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: Watching it is exasperating at first, but it grows more engrossing. Read more

Steven Rosen, Denver Post: The video work is so grainy and rough, so dependent on being 'naturalistic' rather than carefully lit and set up, that it's exhausting to watch. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: If Ocean's Eleven was a high-priced banquet of popular guys toasting one another's hard-earned coolness in a pointless caper, Full Frontal is the after-party. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Boasting a title saturated in irony, Full Frontal is about as oblique as a picture gets. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: Several of Steven Soderbergh's earlier films were hailed as the works of an artist. Sadly, Full Frontal plays like the work of a dilettante. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Fragmented, elliptical and overplotted to the point of being hard to track. Still, it's worth hanging in for the finish ... [when] Soderbergh pulls off a delicious trick, a gesture of pure, tender, unabashed movie love that makes up for everything. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Audiences are going to be irritated if not simply befuddled by the film, although it is not a movie to be easily dismissed, and certainly not for lack of ideas. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: Soderbergh is so busy trying to create his movie-within-a-movie -- and, in at least one instance, his movie-within- a-movie-within -a-movie -- that he botches the enclosing movie. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: When improv is done well, it sheds a unique light on the human condition. When it is done adequately, as it is in Full Frontal, it simply makes you long for a good script and pricey production values. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: A boring, amateurish, incomprehensible and stupefyingly pretentious pile of swill. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Mr. Soderbergh's direction and visual style struck me as unusually and unimpressively fussy and pretentious. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Even those who are used to art house films will likely be underwhelmed by the bareness of Full Frontal's menu. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: A film so amateurish that only the professionalism of some of the actors makes it watchable. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The whole thing feels like a ruse, a tactic to cover up the fact that the picture is constructed around a core of flimsy -- or, worse yet, nonexistent -- ideas. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Think of the picture as 107 entertaining minutes from a very smart director who has decided to come out and play. Read more

Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Full Frontal is perhaps the ultimate expression in upscale slumming passing for indie art. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Mike D'Angelo, Time Out: Fails to cohere on a thematic level, but restless formal experimentation doesn't get much more accessible and entertaining. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: See this movie for its humor and talented cast and you won't be disappointed. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Unlike Magnolia or Mulholland Drive, it doesn't offer an audience much incentive to tease out its ambiguities. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Adds up to less than its admittedly entertaining parts. Read more