Don McKay: Critic Reviews

Goldberger gets a few good tonal feints in, especially when he consults the Coen recipe book for the disorienting effect of blood (and bloody violence) on American simple folk.

When you pack your movie with performers like Mr. Church, Ms. Leo, Mr. Rebhorn and Keith David (as Dona(TM)s old friend), all with faces and deliveries that can slide easily between comedy and menace, youa(TM)re holding a full house.

This is a movie that, if you can make it to the last 30 minutes, starts to make some sense. It seems the plot twist is the only good idea in the script.

A strange, largely inert indie thriller.

A ludicrously pretentious train wreck masquerading as a movie.

Writer-director Jake Goldberger's mild riff on Double Indemnity, etc., works best as a showcase for its veteran cast.

Don McKay certainly has its moments, but it never manages to maintain the consistent tone so crucial if a black comedy is going to actually be funny.

An admirable attempt even if the film only works spottily.

...an almost aggressively pointless piece of work that simply isn't able to justify its very existence.

Labored and distractingly uneven, Don McKay comes across as a lackadaisical film school writing assignment that somehow lucked into a feature film deal.

Goldberger makes the most of his eclectic, multi-Oscar-nominated cast to make up for the lack of scope and visual panache, not to mention the sometimes strained machinations of his plot

The tone and the pacing always seem a little off and as a result, we become all too aware of mechanics of the screenplay grinding along towards a finale that is simply too complicated and unbelievable for its own good.

Clearly Goldberger thinks he can juggle this delicate noirish souffle but it all comes crashing down around him because the true nature of his characters' actions just don't make a whole lot of sense.

[Director] Greenberg's tyro script is both dark comedy and slick whodunit and all the players do it justice. He handles his material and fine cast with a deft hand that belies his freshman status.

Church's performance could be stuffed and mounted with no loss of liveliness.

Savvy viewers aren't likely to get too invested in these characters and their dilemmas, if only because the style of this parody of wish fulfillment will tip most of them off about the plot's misrepresentations in advance

First-time writer-director Jake Goldberger may have a great film in him. But "Don McKay" isn't it.

...doesn't have the most tightly written script, but off kilter performances, particularly a hilariously determined Elisabeth Shue as the femme fatale Sonny...keep things bubbling along as the plot rolls to a boil over.

Thomas Haden Church wears a puzzled scowl throughout this bizarre film noir, and so will viewers as they struggle to figure out just what Jake Goldberger is going for.

An alluring blonde has spelled many a noir protagonist's doom, and that stereotypical femme is exploited for modest suspense and humor in writer-director Jake Goldberger's off-kilter tale.

The plot unfolds like a numbed-down neo-noir, and the actors treat it as such, using overwrought dramatic turns as a springboard for delightfully hammy performances.

An entertaining enough diversion, though in this critic's opinion it veers sharply from the sublime to the ridiculous.

A squirmy-funny exercise in oddness that happily takes its time getting to the truth...Church hasn't had many roles as juicy as the title character of Don McKay.

Jake Goldberger has lassoed a great cast to ham it up in this comical homage to Billy Wilder's classic noirs Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard.