The Lodger 2009

Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times: The Lodger is a spooky story ruined by lumpen dialogue, cloddish performances and a director and writer (David Ondaatje) oblivious to both. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: It takes guts to remake what many believe to be Hitchcock's first masterpiece, but what Ondaatje's done with The Lodger could not be mistaken for ambition. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: This strained, empty effort doesn't work as homage or update, and in its darkly violent sensibility has neither the glamour of Brian De Palma's referential nightmares or even the narrative fuel of the serial-killer-obsessed procedurals that dominate tv. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Filled with second-rate Brian DePalma twists, noirishly blurred lights and usually solid actors mouthing potboiler brine, The Lodger resembles bottom-shelf '80s dreck. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: A good cast can't save The Lodger, the utterly wrongheaded fourth movie version of a 1910 novel inspired by Jack the Ripper that was most famously filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1926. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: The cast works hard to make you believe they believe what the screenwriter tells them to believe. But in the end, it all seems contrived and silly. Read more

Ben Walters, Time Out: This serial-killer procedural is about a West Hollywood slasher who apes Jack the Ripper, but the real crime is the travesty writer-director David Ondaatje perpetrates on Hitchcock. Read more

John Anderson, Variety: What needed to be a taut, structurally sound psychothriller instead malfunctions from the start. Read more