200 Cigarettes: Critic Reviews

It gets by on personality.

A twentysomething comedy with a brain-dead script, unflattering lighting and 16 performers in search of a scriptwriter.

Nothing much happens, and that's the point, but all this wheel spinning could have used more grease.

It feels more like a high-level acting workshop than a narrative film.

Everybody vamps and preens as if it were amateur night in SoHo, and a few of the performers, such as Kate Hudson, appear ill-used.

Seeing a film like this helps you to realize that actors are empty vessels waiting to be filled with characters and dialogue.

Director Risa Bramon Garcia and writer Shana Larsen obviously know their history and geography, and they've nailed the feel of the early '80s in the East Village.

This movie isn't merely disrespectful; it's contemptuous.

You should be able to quash this one with no cravings to ever pick it up again.

There's no sign of the writerly derring-do that is really essential to daisy-chain storytelling.

Though it has its moments, 200 Cigarettes fails to make an impression because it doesn't have anything new to say about men, women or even Gloria Vanderbilt jeans.

A tepid affair, distinguished by bland character development, uninspired and insipid dialogue, and a nonexistent plot.

Hit-and-mostly-miss retro comedy.

A light comedy, pure and simple (and hardly unfamiliar), but its makers sustain its energy through the unraveling of an intricate plot and bring to it a certain edge through a witty, sharp sense of observation.

Ensemble cast drinks and flirts through lame New Year's Eve.

New Years Eve, 1981. Disco was on its way out, and the "New Wave" was pounding on the shore, bringing in a fresh tide of angst for a new decade . . . good for a laugh

In the hands of director Risa Bramon Garcia and writer Shana Larsen, their predicament is funny, sad and wistful as only young lust can be.

An underrated, entertaining lark of a Tarantinoesque film.

If you find too many of these people boring, inconsequential or annoying, you're going to find the film has the same effect.

Oddly uninvolving and boring.

Garcia orchestrates her New Wave symphony deftly, making each character distinctive.

Like Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," the story concludes that love makes fools of us all.

I did laugh a lot, and genuinely was interested in the various storylines, but I wanted them to be more interrelated.

Deft casting, boffo tunes and a snappy script provide 200 CIGARETTES with unfiltered fun.

It did capture the East Village feel of the Reagan 1980s.