Violet & Daisy 2011

A.O. Scott, New York Times: We don't feel the weight and menace of death, nor the volatile emotions of youth, and have nothing to respond to beyond the spectacle of girls with guns. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Artsy-fartsy gibberish executed with a staggering incoherence that smacks of desperation. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: A frequently off-putting film about two teenage assassins. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: Talky and artificial, it moves like a sort of lobotomized Hal Hartley movie ... Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Fletcher must have thought the dark comedy would indemnify him against the cascading illogic of the plot. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: A candy-colored offering of bloodshed and banter so self-conscious that it alienates the viewer early and often. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: An ambitious but not wholly successful directorial debut by the writer behind the Precious film. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Ronan is good at shifting between killer and kid. But it's impossible not to wish she would once again have a role that matches her talent. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Violet and Daisy are just violent and crazy - which is, ultimately, the real problem. And why we should care about them remains the one mystery no one here can quite unravel. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Violet and Daisy's cutesy chatter, and violence set to great old songs, are the movie's reasons for being. Which ultimately isn't enough ammo. Read more

Sara Stewart, New York Post: A rather dull affair. Read more

Matt Zoller Seitz, Chicago Sun-Times: A thriller that might as well have been released in 1996, when everybody and their brother and their sister and their cousin twice-removed was trying to be Quentin Tarantino ... Read more

Claude Peck, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The script might have pushed harder, and included more incident and less of the rote psychologizing that bogs things down in the final reel. Read more

Mary Houlihan, Chicago Sun-Times: Of course, the violence is cringe-worthy and, at times, over the top. But view this as a modern comic book/fairy tale, and it's easier to accept this saga of girls with guns and the life lessons they eventually confront. Read more

Matt Singer, Time Out: Fletcher ... drowns his directorial debut in the sort of quirky yak-yak-yak conversations seemingly required of modern movies about hit men. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Geoffrey Fletcher's directorial debut manages to be precious in a whole different way, sadly far-removed from the approach he took adapting the novel Push by Sapphire. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: The key relationships are well drawn, if not especially revealing of anything human, and director Fletcher sometimes dares some welcome absurdity. Read more

Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: The film's subtle visual allure is all but stamped out by the impression that the director tries too hard to be an idiosyncratic auteur in the vein of Quentin Tarantino. Read more