Carnage 2011

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Polanski has earned the right to pursue his career-long demons of confinement and anarchy even in a minor film like this. But Carnage is not the word for what he's perpetrated here. Minor irritation is more like it. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: Carnage is satisfied to be an absolutely virtuoso piece of cinema craft, and to give its excellent cast multiple opportunities to show off their comedic chops, which are considerable. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: As a portrait of anxious, status-conscious Brooklyn parents living in a chiaroscuro of self-righteousness and guilt, "Carnage" misses its mark badly. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: The whole enterprise feels slight, not exactly undercooked so much as lavished with unearned commitment. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: I was put off by the acting, or more properly by the spectacle of good actors dutifully following leaden direction, and equally by the writing, which is as thin as the veneer of civilization it purports to peel back. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: An odd little chamber piece, "Carnage" plays out like a very tense meeting from which you can't wait to depart. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Roman Polanski's agreeably, then gratuitously, nasty adaptation of Yasmina Reza's play God Of Carnage. Read more

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: A film that makes its audience feel as trapped as its characters. Read more

Mark Kennedy, Associated Press: A nasty spat between two couples over the course of an evening may not sound like a fun flick, but like any act of carnage, it's hard to turn away. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: You may recognize the arrogance and anxieties, the class resentments and domestic bile, from your PTA's most recent talent night. More likely, they're as close as the nearest mirror. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Foster is particularly impressive in a stridently unattractive role, as the pinched, angry liberal who's orchestrated the meeting but doesn't get quite the apology she wants. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "Carnage" becomes a lesson in how to handle a willfully claustrophobic assignment with panache. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Amusing as some of this is, after a while I wanted out. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Skillfully acted by Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet, [it's a] compact verbal slugfest. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The actors seem to have fun, particularly Foster, working against type as the thoroughly unlikable Penelope. But "Carnage" isn't nearly as bloody as it thinks it is. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: No one makes sense in Reza's world of glittering mockery. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: Eventually, the characters - and the film - find their belligerent groove. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Snappy, nasty, deftly acted and perhaps the fastest paced film ever directed by a 78-year-old, this adaptation of Yasmina Reza's award-winning play God of Carnage fully delivers the laughs and savagery of the stage piece... Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: This kind of material is never going to warm anyone's heart, but done as well as it is here, this pitiless verbal farce can provide bleak satisfactions of its own. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The entire point of Carnage is to poke fun at the fragile civility of the upper-middle class - they're all animals inside! - but how much more fun would this material have been if the story hadn't been about polite white people? Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: The astonishing Waltz steals the picture, possibly because he's the one with a rational perspective (despite his telephonic obsessiveness): He sees the whole exercise as pointless. Ultimately, so do we. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: Not even Polanski can find grit in its silly provocations. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: If the original drama seemed designed to make patrons feel smarter than they were, its new director does the same favor for the playwright. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: You're always aware that you're watching filmed theater. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Often very funny and bitingly incisive. Yet, like a visit to friends you don't really care for, you kind of can't wait to leave. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Fast, furious and often funny. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Scathing and funny and cynical about contemporary society and the hypocritical way we live now, Carnage may not be the dream movie I expected, but it has a dream cast of pure, unimpeachable ensemble perfection. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Think Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but then think fun. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Carnage suffers from a common problem that afflicts many stage-to-screen adaptations: too much artifice and contrivance. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Tedious and self-congratulatory. Wears out its welcome after about a half hour. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The point isn't the plot, it's the performances. Here four familiar actors seem ideally cast for their roles. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: The film version of Carnage hasn't just lost God from its title, it's lost the laughs from the play that brought it life. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Seeing these four actors launching Reza's zingers at each other at high speed is pretty much worth the price of admission all by itself, and one thing you always know about Polanski is that he won't waste your time. Read more

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: In real life, hyper-controlling metropolitan parents would not waste this much time on people they loathe. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Even as you admire the film's construction, it's hard to shake the thought that a lot of talent got thrown away on the wrong project. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: A brilliantly discomfiting comedy of frustration. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: If we grant that "Carnage" is a low-impact exercise in stripping away the social veneer, it's nonetheless brisk and enjoyable. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, The Atlantic: Where previously we felt as trapped in Polanski's apartments as his characters, in Carnage we only ever peek in through the window. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Despite the efforts of an impressive cast, the film starts out stale and then just gets tedious. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: One of those instances where staying close to the enclosed action of the stage version is the perfect cinematic choice. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: Brief, brutal and barmy. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Carnage is a comedy of claustrophobia and revealed truths, and Polanski knows both all too well. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: While the talented quartet play these hypocritical sorts with finesse, the story grows tiresome, its cynical point made early and often. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: This acid-drenched four-hander never shakes off a mannered, hermetic feel that consistently betrays its theatrical origins. Read more

Karina Longworth, Village Voice: Even as it successfully evokes the single location as a pressure cooker for heightened behavior, its take on the psychological and emotional side effects of such an airless situation never transcends the obvious. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: What are supposed to be transgressive observations about the holy state of parenthood and matrimony instead come across as self-satisfied and shallow as the pieties Reza intends to puncture. Read more