Bullet to the Head (2013)

All Critics (127) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (60) | Rotten (67)

Hill's eye for back alley scuzz is as strong as ever, but the story, adapted from a French graphic novel by Alexis Nolent, is so die-cut it gives neither him nor Stallone anything to work with.

February 4, 2013 Full Review

J. R. Jones

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

On its own degenerate terms, the movie works.

February 4, 2013 Full Review

David Edelstein

Vulture

Top Critic

It's a series of fight scenes that build to a climax that is surprisingly unsatisfying in the way it ultimately plays out.

February 3, 2013 Full Review

James Berardinelli

ReelViews

Top Critic

Sylvester Stallone shoots people in the face. That's it for subtext in this formula action swill. Why do I sound like I should expect more. Because the credits list the director as Walter Hill.

February 2, 2013 Full Review

Peter Travers

Rolling Stone

Top Critic

Bullet to the Head doesn't try to adapt its star to 2013. It just pretends that we're still living in 1986. And for 91 minutes, it just about works.

February 1, 2013 Full Review

Chris Nashawaty

Entertainment Weekly

Top Critic

Stallone can still be entertaining, but here he's got no character to play, nothing fun to say, and the craziest hair/hairpiece/scalp growth this side of John Travolta.

February 1, 2013 Full Review

Alonso Duralde

The Wrap

Top Critic

The roar dies into a hollow echo, the growl gets gutturally one-note and the grit becomes B-movie background. Has too scuzzy a heart to pump out a deep throb of action. Peel this one back and you get more pit than pulp.

May 6, 2013 Full Review

Brian Gibson

Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)

The film could be summed by its product placement for Bulleit Bourbon, treated like a rare luxury when it's actually $20 a bottle at Trader Joe's; director Walter Hill serves this inexpensive, everyday material with a serious flourish.

March 19, 2013 Full Review

Richard von Busack

MetroActive

At its ridiculous best Bullet reminds us why we liked Stallone in the first place. But time has moved on, for him and for us and there's a point where looking back this way stops being entertaining and starts to become sad.

March 18, 2013 Full Review

Joshua Starnes

ComingSoon.net

Walter Hill has lost none of his directorial prowess!

March 15, 2013 Full Review

Sara Maria Vizcarrondo

Movies With Butter

What's it about? Some bad guys. And some other bad guys. And some badder guys. And bullets to the head, as though through repetition of the title in action we're meant to finally understand the platonic ideal of how to murder a person with a gun.

March 8, 2013 Full Review

Dave White

Movies.com

A barely passable, if unmemorable, bit of action-heavy entertainment -- as long as you don't think too hard about the script's eye-rollingly contrived setup.

March 1, 2013 Full Review

Mike Scott

Times-Picayune

Look, Stallone has a perky daughter. Will she end up tied to a chair in a disused refinery (or something)? You know it.

February 17, 2013 Full Review

Donald Clarke

Irish Times

... a star vehicle for Stallone first and foremost, giving him a potentially intriguing antihero character surrounded by a story that shoots blanks.

February 16, 2013 Full Review

Todd Jorgenson

Cinemalogue.com

Stallone still mumbles the lines, but his timing is pretty good and the jokes are well done. Violent as the film is, the special effects and stunts are impressive, especially the ax fight at the end.

February 9, 2013 Full Review

Tony Medley

Tolucan Times

An okay action movie but sadly Stallone has entered into the "who cares" category.

February 9, 2013 Full Review

Jackie K. Cooper

jackiekcooper.com

Stallone and Hill make the often-corny dialogue sound not only plausible but weirdly logical.

February 8, 2013 Full Review

Kelly Vance

East Bay Express

With a cracked-asphalt voice, a shaved-wildebeest hide, the veined musculature of Swamp Thing and the apparent flexibility of a tree trunk, the aging Sylvester Stallone remains a commanding, amusing and somewhat awe-inspiring screen presence.

February 8, 2013 Full Review

John Beifuss

Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

Thanks to Hill's directorial brio and some hot-wired one liners, Stallone can still put bad folks out of their misery real fast.

February 7, 2013 Full Review

Graham Young

Birmingham Mail

This is a very violent police action film, and that is all you can expect from it.

February 7, 2013 Full Review

Robert Roten

Laramie Movie Scope

Not a classic action film, but it's a decent genre entry and the fight scenes are worth the price of admission.


February 7, 2013 Full Review

Lori Hoffman

Atlantic City Weekly

The filmmakers must see this as idea laundering - if a movie comes from a French graphic novel inspired by American movies, then it's not really stolen moronic movie junk. It's French!

February 5, 2013 Full Review

Kirk Honeycutt

honeycuttshollywood.com

It's not a terrible movie, merely a mediocre one.

February 5, 2013 Full Review

Chris Knight

National Post

Don't bother with plot coherence or plausibility - if you're going to a Stallone film for logic, then you're in the wrong theater.

February 5, 2013 Full Review

Monica Castillo

Boston Phoenix

More curdled nostalgia than cinematic excitement.

February 5, 2013 Full Review

Frank Swietek

One Guy's Opinion

• 1. James Bonomo: Bang. Down. Owned.
  – Submitted by Maher J (2 months ago)
• 1. James Bonomo: Are you a cop or shrink?
  – Submitted by Maher J (2 months ago)
• 1. Robert Nkomo Morel: In classical literature the hero dies.
  – Submitted by Maher J (2 months ago)
• 1. James Bonomo: You had me at fuck you.
  2. Morel: If I wanted your opinion I would have bought you a brain.
  – Submitted by Caesar M (3 months ago)
• 1. Taylor Kwon: I'm from Florida!
  – Submitted by Chris P (3 months ago)
• 1. Jimmy Bobo: I got some rules. No women... No children.
  – Submitted by Chris P (3 months ago)