54
Metascore
18 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The GuardianCatherine ShoardThe GuardianCatherine ShoardThe Riot Club hands its audience a ticket, as well as a free pass to pour scorn over proceedings. That's a double-bill which should prove pretty irresistible.
- 80VarietyPeter DebrugeVarietyPeter DebrugeScherfig approaches the milieu with shrewd anthropological wit, amplifying Wade’s research with her own keen outsider insights — this on top of an expert grasp of tension and tone as the club’s initial allure turns to anxiety and disgust.
- 60CineVueBen NicholsonCineVueBen NicholsonIt makes for entertaining viewing but its power is undermined by a ultimate lack of insight amongst the debauchery.
- 60EmpireEmpireWell played across the board, The Riot Club is an entertaining glimpse into the dark side of privilege. Yet it lacks the richness and insight to be anything more.
- 60Time Out LondonCath ClarkeTime Out LondonCath ClarkeWade’s dialogue is totally convincing, all in-jokes and boarding school banter... The trouble with The Riot Club is that dramatically it never quite comes together.
- 60Village VoiceInkoo KangVillage VoiceInkoo KangDirector Lone Scherfig’s stagings of these suspenseful set pieces are masterful, but the rest of the thriller is a fairly predictable manifesto against Britain’s de facto oligarchy.
- 50The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyLaura Wade’s adaptation of her hit play, Posh, has sacrificed much of its savage comedy en route to the screen, and while the dark drama is never dull, its portrait of upper-crust entitlement run amok is seldom surprising either.
- 42The PlaylistNikola GrozdanovicThe PlaylistNikola GrozdanovicAll of that star-making and directorial grace Scherfig possesses is substituted for a bludgeoning attempt at provoking the British elite into taking a long hard look at themselves through a cracked mirror. She retains her confrontational sensibilities with none of the subtlety, and hammers a single message to mind-numbing effect.
- 38Slant MagazineClayton DillardSlant MagazineClayton DillardThe thinly sketched characters of the film are numerous and inconsequential, with director Lone Scherfig giving sparse attention to humanizing or deepening them.