57
Metascore
8 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe whole movie has a winning sadness about it; take away the story's sensational aspects and what you have is a study in loneliness.
- 88The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jay ScottThe Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jay ScottAn inspired variation on his familiar theme: the whore with a heart of gold is a man. [2 Feb 1980]
- 75TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineAbandoning the gritty realism of his first two films, BLUE COLLAR and HARDCORE, screenwriter-turned-director Schrader here adopted a sleek and stylish approach. The result was one of his most satisfying attempts to mesh a European sensibility and his own obsession with moral drift and emotional alienation.
- 50Time Out LondonTime Out LondonUnfortunately, the film is so determinedly stylish (Gere's costumes, Giorgio Moroder's soundtrack, John Bailey's noir-inflected camerawork), and the performances generally so vacuous (only Elizondo's detective really breathes), that it all becomes something of an academic, if entertaining, exercise that fails to stir the emotions.
- 40TimeRichard SchickelTimeRichard SchickelSchrader's development of the frame-up story is mechanically melodramatic, and Gere, essentially a boring actor, doesn't help much either. He just cannot carry a picture, even when his passivity and gentleness well serve some aspects of his character, as they do here.
- 40Washington PostWashington PostThis is basically a story about the pastime of shopping as an antidote to boredom, only the shopper has wandered into a cocktail lounge, instead of a store, and is looking for something live, or nearly so, to try on. That any human activity worth considering should ensue from this situation would be ridiculous to expect. [8 Feb 1980, p.20]
- 30NewsweekDavid AnsenNewsweekDavid AnsenThough it tells us that it's about a man who gives pleasure for a living but is incapable of accepting pleasure, it is in fact about the guilty obsessions of a filmmaker who seems incapable of giving pleasure to an audience. [11 Feb 1980, p.82]