81
Metascore
11 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100San Francisco ExaminerBarbara ShulgasserSan Francisco ExaminerBarbara ShulgasserThis movie is a pleasure, an entertainment and an admirable artistic achievement.
- 90VarietyLisa NesselsonVarietyLisa NesselsonThis sure-footed, deeply ironic comedy about an impostor who rises through the ranks is rock-solid entertainment with an appealing edge.
- 90Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranLos Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSmart and provocative.
- 88The Seattle TimesJohn HartlThe Seattle TimesJohn HartlThis is a confident, playful film that skewers both the amorality of the central character and, less comfortably, the gullibility of the people he so easily dupes. [5 Dec 1997, p.G5]
- 78Austin ChronicleRussell SmithAustin ChronicleRussell Smith[A] distinctive, thought-provoking film.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertHis film is more subtle and wide-reaching, the story of a man for whom everything is equally unreal, who distrusts his own substance so deeply that he must be somebody else to be anybody at all.
- 75San Francisco ChroniclePeter StackSan Francisco ChroniclePeter StackDirector Jacques Audiard beautifully lays out the story of a charming nobody named Albert who becomes a master of the half- smile and nonchalant gestures of deceit. But the story is also a cogent metaphor for French collaboration with the Nazis.
- 75TV Guide MagazineKen FoxTV Guide MagazineKen FoxAudriad's film articulates an uncomfortably familiar vision of a nation desperate enough to believe its own lies, where the copy is inevitably much better than the real thing and heroes are only as genuine as one needs them to be.
- 75New York Daily NewsJami BernardNew York Daily NewsJami BernardJacques Audiard's amusingly stinging A Self-Made Hero toys with the subjectivity of historical truth by presenting one Albert Dehousse (Mathieu Kassovitz), loser, cipher, liar. But a brilliant liar. [12 Sept 1997, p.44]
- 70The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet MaslinBut this miracle of self-invention has more virtue in the abstract than it does on screen.