Clay Pigeons: Critic Reviews

A film that delights by confounding expectations.

Within Clay Pigeons is a smaller story that might have involved us more, but it's buried by overkill.

Slanted as a black comedy, but fails to secure the sufficiently outre tone (let alone any real suspense) needed to make it more than a middling retread.

Clay Pigeons may not actually be a good movie, but it has many of the ingredients of one.

This is one of those motion pictures where the director (David Dobkin, in his feature debut) and the writer (Matt Healy) are so concerned about developing a clever, serpentine plot that they forget that there has to be a credible ending.

"You've got a sense of humor, I like that," Lester Long proclaims at one point. Well, we all like that, but would it be asking too much to have a little coherence to go along with it?

This quirky comedy thriller, produced by Ridley Scott, is both blackly funny and, at times, tensely disturbing and quite macabre.

Vince Vaughn may play the two best movie serial killers this year if his Norman Bates rendition can match his performance in Clay Pigeons.

An okay little High Plains Noir, but it unravels at the end.

The boyishly braying laugh Vaughn punctuates his conversations with is a true actor's finesse on his character.

Twisted and quietly addicting crime flick.

Great performance by Vaughn

It's hard to put a finger on what exactly this film is, and, for a while, it seems as if the filmmakers aren't sure what they're after, either.

Brilliant direction.

This is not your classic whodunit. It's blacker, funnier, and edgier.

Mr. Vaughn is possessed not only of long limbs and an attractive face, but also of a distinctive voice that he uses to command attention, even when his material is routine.

Actually brings a clean, new and very funny edge to the weathered genre of crime and sleaze.

It's a beautifully structured piece with a high quotient of neat, shocking twists. Director David Dobkin exercises welcome restraint; although the movie is full of macabre touches, it's witty rather than grotesque.