He Was a Quiet Man: Critic Reviews

A real oddity of a film: a satire of corporate office despair.

He's [Christian Slater] still a capable actor, but seems to be having as much trouble finding good scripts as his Heathers co-star Winona Ryder.

Cappello's brilliant script and expert storytelling would merely be interesting if anyone other than Christian Slater had been cast as Bob Maconel.

He Was a Quiet Man devolves near the end, but it has enough memorable moments (a comic-turned-horrible karaoke sequence is a highlight) to merit a cautious recommendation.

The nightmare is enhanced by Slater's gonzo performance. It's great to see the once mighty king of cool challenged in Quiet Man with a complex role that Slater bites down hard on.

Occasionally works as a black comedy, but there's nothing real or true in it

Slater really sells Bob's tormented inner soul in a very appealing way; he feels like a real person inside his insane world.

With the right audience He Was a Quiet Man might well play as black comedy. But Slater, disappearing into his role, brings a note of earnest desperation to his performance that's hard to laugh at, and hard to look away from.

An absorbing and well-made indie drama.

Above average (just) comedy drama.

At the end you are just left admiring one of Slater's best ever performances.

Christian Slater's dedicated performance aside, He Was A Quiet Man tries to be both a black comedy and a drama, each ultimately undermining the other.

Although the budget is low and the plot uneven, it's got a certain cultish charm that should appeal to disaffected office workers.

It's dark and too relentless for the comedy it would like to be.

An enjoyable satire is let down by a third act that juggles too many ideas for its own good.

Slater does well to soften the lines of his no-hoper caricature, but writer-director Cappello steers his film to nowhere particularly memorable.

Combining the mordant observations of The Office with the twisted romance of Boxing Helena, this macabre farce is an acquired taste, whose fantastical flourishes and toilet humour merely heighten the unsettling perversity of the whole.

Imagine Marty if Marty had turned out to be the Unabomber and you'll have the gist of writer-director Frank Cappello's oddly compelling, pitch-black comedy.

With its dreamlike flourishes and unrelenting despair, Frank A. Cappello's pitch-black dramedy feels distinctive even if it recalls bits from Falling Down, Office Space and even Boxing Helena.