The Sugarland Express: Critic Reviews

The movie has a casual craziness that seems especially native.

If the movie finally doesn't succeed, that's because Spielberg has paid too much attention to all those police cars (and all the crashes they get into), and not enough to the personalities of his characters.

The Sugarland Express is not terribly original - Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands and The Getaway are indelibly marked in its DNA - but shows an already dazzling young filmmaker honing his skills and vision.

Steven Spielberg in Malickland, with dolly and zoom and a wagonload of familial issues

Modest but assured work.

Reflecting the zeitgeist of mid-1970s America, this early Spieleberg picture is still one of his strongest, dealing with alienation, anarchy, and lack of control; Goldie Hawn gives an uncharacteristicaly forceful dramatic performance.

One of the most purely fun and slyly political films Spielberg has ever made. One of Hawn's best performances.

[W]ould be mostly forgotten melodrama if it hadn't been directed by a kid named Steven Spielberg...

There's no question that this is a director with a God-given talent.

Features real attention to the sort of character dynamics that would serve subsequent [Spielberg] titles.

a fine example of the fugitives-on-the-run genre, holding its own alongside Thelma and Louise, Bandits, The Defiant Ones, and to a lesser extent Badlands and Bonnie and Clyde

Masterful command of atmosphere and tone, great, understated performances.

With this first theatrical feature, Steven Spielberg proved he had the right stuff to become America's purest and most accomplished film entertainer.