Honeydripper Reviews

An engaging and inspirational tale... handled with graceful understatement.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

It's optimistic, and maybe it doesn't have a heck of a lot to do with history, but it's a tale well told.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

While this may not be the rowdiest birth-of-rock-'n'-roll film ever made -- it's very likely the least rowdy -- Sayles addresses a transitional moment in his own patient, precise way.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

It's a leisurely paced period musical drama set in the Jim Crow south of the 1950s that's steeped in the black southern mores ... .

Full Review | Original Score: B

John Sayles, after 27 years and 16 films, is the ancient mariner of independent cinema, navigating the constantly swirling waters of the genre with passion and skill.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

This isn't the kind of flashy Big Issue movie that makes people stand up and take notice. It's quiet and moody, with outbursts of strong emotion and energy.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

inert

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4

In this allegory, you understand, times change and troubles stay the same.

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... a tone deaf movie, filled with obvious, overly expository dialogue and sometimes patronizing symbols.

Full Review | Original Score: 77/100

The movie's central story is too slight and predictable to justify all the embroidery Sayles adds around the edges.

| Original Score: 2.5/4

Never reaches its full tempo

Full Review | Original Score: B-

Those who are patient will be rewarded with an engaging cast and the type of rousing ending that makes it worthwhile.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

The cumulative effect is very tasty indeed.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

It survives on its versatile leads, its smoky cinematography (courtesy of Dick Pope) and its seductive musical performances, which run from gospel to jazz to blues to the to the electrifying kick-start of early rock 'n' roll.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

John Sayles is back in the saddle with another film in his regional cinema series

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

like a rich and complex novel rendered as a visual experience that is equally rich and as unabashedly poetic in its images as Sayles is with his metaphors

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

Honeydripper is an electrifying period piece about how music can bring folks together and generally save one's soul -- or at least its final 15 minutes is. The rest of the time, it's just a lot of sassy talk and scenery.

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Even more than the music in this musically rich picture, the great pleasure of Honeydripper is in watching Danny Glover as Tyrone Purvis, the club owner.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Honeydripper is a pleasant enough story, but when Sayles is involved, it is a shock to feel so little.

Full Review | Original Score: C

With its cotton-field locations, diddley-bo props and scripted nods toward blues history and mythology, 'Honeydripper' somehow feels touristy rather than authentic -- as if it were a product of research rather than passion.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4