57
Metascore
7 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80NewsweekJack KrollNewsweekJack KrollSaint Jack should clear away all irrelevancies, reminding us that Bogdanovich is a gifted and distinctive director who should be making movies, not enemies. [07 May 1979, p.88]
- 80The Observer (UK)The Observer (UK)Bogdanovich's best film since his fall from grace in the mid-Seventies, and produced by Roger Corman who gave him his first jobs on low-budget drive-in movies. [18 Aug 2002, p.8]
- 75The PlaylistJessica KiangThe PlaylistJessica KiangSaint Jack is probably Bogdanovich’s loosest film, the one that feels most Cassavetian in execution, in which classical plotting, let alone the kind of manic screwballishness that characterizes the director’s comedies, is entirely absent in favor of a low-key, episodic character portrait embedded in a gritty, exotic, and relatively little-filmed locale.
- The film uses the locations well and Gazzara's performance is an actor's dream. But SAINT JACK never quite becomes the "important" film it seems to aspire to be. The story is told in too meandering a style and the many well-acted characterizations never mesh together.
- 40The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyThere are some pleasant things in Saint Jack, but there are few surprises, except for the fact that either the movie's editor or Mr. Bogdanovich, who directed the film and wrote the screenplay with Howard Sackler and Paul Theroux (based on the novel by Mr. Theroux), hasn't found a simple way to indicate the passage of time.
- 20Time OutTime OutThe director's smugness effortlessly trumps Robby Müller's camera-work and the good performances (notably from Denholm Elliott). Hard to imagine how anyone could make less of such a promising subject.