Why Stop Now 2012

Stephen Holden, New York Times: As "Why Stop Now?" gathers momentum, the increasingly uneasy sensation it produces is not unlike that of being in the back seat of a speeding car whose drunken driver refuses to give up the wheel. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: It's handsome, well-paced, and nicely acted, but suffers from a fatal lack of purpose, as if Dorling and Nyswaner couldn't commit to whatever movie they wanted to make. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Jesse Eisenberg, Melissa Leo, and Tracy Morgan make an unlikely but entertaining trio in this frantic shaggy-dog story. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: Feels trapped in the limbo between comedy and drama where many indies gamely venture, but from which few emerge with any resonance. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: Why Stop Now refuses to keep faith with its characters, to carry them as far as they can go without tying them up in a neat bow of redemption. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: This comic drama tries too hard to serve up a slice of manic life, but Eisenberg, along with Tracy Morgan and Isiah Whitlock Jr. as the affable druggies, provides some spark. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Drug abuse stories are to Hollywood what babies are to mothers: fascinating to the talkers, not so interesting for their audiences. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: "Why Stop Now" is a bright screwball comedy about one fraught day in the life of a piano prodigy, his crackhead mother and her drug dealers. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: First-time directors Phil Dorling and Ron Nyswaner can't find a coherent emotional tone, and the actors' energetic contortions can't keep the sinking story afloat. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Nothing-script, performances, comedy, drama-works in the slightest. Read more

Simon Abrams, Village Voice: An unbearable 90-minute trip with a trio of loud, needy egotists-one whose updated scenario never feels like it needs the extra 75 minutes. Read more