The Good Heart 2009

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: A hangover toast to an old New York with original wood paneling, cassette tapes and indoor smoking Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: As robust and clever an actor as Cox is, he can't make Jacques any less of a blowhard; Kari's wit simply doesn't come through in English, at least with this script. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: No amount of splenetic ranting by Brian Cox, a wonderful actor, when given the right role, can salvage The Good Heart from terminal mawkishness. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: Cox's character is a living, hissing embodiment of the idea that no good deed goes unpunished. As an actor stuck in a movie that wastes his talents, Cox can surely relate. Read more

Mark Feeney, Boston Globe: Cox doesn't so much chew the scenery as inhale it. Dano looks on in awe. Who can blame him? For that matter, who can blame Cox? Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Cox has some wonderfully funny moments, but both actors are playing heavily to type-Cox the irascible bull, Dano the soulful dormouse - and there's a lot of shouting and hurling stuff into the street. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: This odd couple never moves beyond oddness and the lower-depths shenanigans grate. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Iceland-bred writer-director Dagur Kari shot most of the picture in his homeland, loading a lot of distinctly Nordic seriocomic melancholy onto a study of two characters in a city that never sleeps. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: If you're in the mood for a splash of dark drama, a bit of humor, very dry, on the rocks, with a twist, this will come close to satisfying. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: But the film has no grasp of reality. And, worse, it has no feel for poetry, settling for pat contrasts between the two men, and taking its cardiac imagery to an absurd and literal conclusion. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: The movie's two bright spots are Cox and Dano, who perform excellently despite the dull inevitabilities the script forces on them. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The movie begins to wear out its welcome even before a conclusion of breathtaking corniness. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Abetted by a thin story line and episodic screenplay, The Good Heart never goes anywhere important, but director Dagur Kri creates a spellbinding ambience. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I will not -- I must not -- tell you what happens at the end of this movie, except to say I was stupefied that anyone in modern times (i.e., since 1910) would have the gall to sell such cornball at retail. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It's a strange thing, this type of whimsy. Kari offers us ideas in place of characters, and yet he expects us to see through these ideas to the real-life conditions they represent -- and then to respond to them in kind. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Cox makes his reanimation a believable, joyful change of heart, rather than a labored bit of plot manipulation. He seems ennobled, not merely sentimentalized. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: The Good Heart dilutes Cox's gravitas with quirk. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: Kari's smug little arthouse offering ends up covered in Nicholas Sparks goo. Read more