The War of the Roses: Critic Reviews

DeVito's direction is distinctively odd (with a lot of low-angle shots looking up at things), enjoyably mischievous and always somehow mindful that there may be, at the heart of all this comic mayhem, something substantial going on.

[A] deliciously jaundiced perspective on matrimony.

The War of the Roses is yuppie Armageddon, an explosion of empty values and curdled peevishness that blows a marriage and blasts a decade.

It's to the credit of DeVito and his co-stars they they were willing to go that far, but maybe it shows more courage than wisdom.

DeVito's taste for unorthodox camera angles and striking camera movements occasionally verges on overreaching but for the most part admirably serves the action.

Trying to wring yocks from a deranged couple locked in mortal combat over possession of their house is more suited to film noir than black comedy.

DeVito triumphs by instilling this caustic satire with truth and consequence.

One of the most durable -- and characteristic -- comedies of the 1980s.

Wildly funny and deeply disturbing.

The film just keeps getting darker and more claustrophobic, like sliding down the center of a spiral.

De Vito's quirky camera angles and Kathleen Turner's steely-eyed spite inject a sadistic comic-strip madness into a film that for once has the nerve to see its nastiness through.

Pretty good -- nice-looking -- black comedy with less copouts than usual.

DeVito exerts a control behind the camera that is otherwise almost nonexistent in contemporary American film comedy.

Comedy does not get any darker than this.

Fun little dark comedy from the days when DeVito still knew how to make a dark comedy fun.