Becket Reviews

Becket is a terrific example of the historical play or novel turned into a cinematic drama crackling with whip-smart dialogue. I imagine actors must go mad with delight when they read a script that has page after page of dialogue this good.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5

it finds what's compelling about that history and, more importantly, what's compelling about the people in that history. And, just to be on the safe side, it throws in two of the greatest actors of the day.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

The respectable but boring film is nevertheless worth watching for the robust performances of Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole

Full Review | Original Score: C+

The material remains relevant, and the film as a whole is completely engrossing. (It may be nearly 2 1/2 hours long, but it doesn't feel like it.)

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

Watching Becket is to see a form of stylized, epic moviemaking not practiced today.

| Original Score: 4/4

This adaptation of Anouilh's play about the relationship of Henry II and Becket is well acted by O'Toole and Burton, both Oscar-nominated.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

O'Toole just keeps turning up the volume, and it's thrilling to watch.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

Ripe with homoerotic undercurrents -- which O'Toole mines with relish in his great hysterical performance, full of cunning, eloquence and mad outbursts.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Becket may seem like a movie of yesteryear, but its timeliness brims over with rousing, meditative discourses between Henry and the church leaders on the separation of church and state.

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Everything that Doctor Strangelove is -- daring and inspired, vibrant and brilliantly staged -- Becket is not.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Peter O'Toole plays Henry like Ian McKellan doing a camp cameo.

Full Review | Original Score: C+

Peter Glenville's stage-plank direction creaks badly, but the acting still holds you.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

The picture is being re-released in 30 cities around the country before finally appearing on DVD after years of online foment from fans.The DVD is due in May, but try to catch it in theaters first. It's worth it.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

Burton is extraordinary in one of his rare good movie roles and O'Toole is regally madcap and larger than life.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

How could you hope for better casting than Peter O'Toole and his acting rival/drinking buddy Richard Burton playing opposite each other?

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

A power play about power plays, Jean Anouilh's now-classic Becket provided the basis for one of the great screen pairings.

| Original Score: 3.5/4

The pleasure of these two extravagantly gifted actors at the top of their game -- their diction! their conviction! their beauty! -- is enormous.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

While peripheral elements of Becket do show their age, the core of the film's appeal remains incandescent, and that is the on-screen collaboration between Burton and O'Toole.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Most of the dialogue-driven scenes are a series of two-shots; which is great in seeing the sparks fly between two of the leading British actors of their generation, but plodding when it comes to pace.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

In 1964, the film's innuendo might have seemed daring; today it's close to ridiculous.

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