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Shadow Dancer Play Trailer

Shadow Dancer (2013)

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Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 3
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 0

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User Ratings: 1,556

My Rating

Movie Info

Single mother Collette McVeigh is a Republican living in Belfast with her mother and hardliner IRA brothers. When she is arrested for her part in an aborted IRA bomb plot in London, an MI5 officer (Mac) offers her a choice: lose everything and go to prison for 25 years or return to Belfast to spy on her own family. With her son's life in her hands, Collette chooses to place her trust in Mac and return home, but when her brothers' secret operation is ambushed, suspicions of an informant are

R,

Mystery & Suspense, Drama

Tom Bradby

Magnolia Pictures - Official Site External Icon

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All Critics (45) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (38) | Rotten (3)

While it's hard to grumble about such a smart, intelligent drama after a summer of big bangs, its slow pace at times feels sluggish.

August 21, 2012 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Riseborough gives a tremendously vulnerable and resolute turn as a protector at home and avenger abroad forced to reconsider the extent to which she is capable of avoiding the crossfire on all sides.

January 27, 2012 Full Review Source: Film.com
Film.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The occasional flareup of violence notwithstanding, it's Riseborough's performance that provides the primary source of suspense.

January 25, 2012 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A sensitive film that respects the conflict in which it is set rather than using it for cheap thrills.

March 4, 2013 Full Review Source: Film4

Director James Marsh fashions a taut thriller out of tough material, much of which pinwheels on a compelling central performance from Andrea Riseborough as a woman trapped in a tightening emotional vice.

October 19, 2012 Full Review Source: 3AW

Shadow Dancer is a quietly devastating story of the poisonous effect of northern Irish politics on the life of a single family.

October 12, 2012 Full Review Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Sydney Morning Herald

This is a tough, thought-provoking nail-biter.

October 12, 2012 Full Review Source: At the Movies (Australia)
At the Movies (Australia)

The film hardly seems like more than an exercise: the plot wraps up neatly but the emotional significance of a key revelation is barely explored.

October 12, 2012 Full Review Source: The Age (Australia)
The Age (Australia)

Marsh improves the movie from the page to the screen. What's shown is often more striking than what's said, but in the perpetual subterfuge of Shadow Dancer that can't fully distinguish a familiar plot from its numerous predecessors.

October 12, 2012 Full Review Source: sbs.com.au
sbs.com.au

This is an uncomfortable movie; a tense and sometimes deliberately drawn out tale - but those who invest the time will uncover some excellent performances.

October 11, 2012 Full Review Source: Shotgun Critic
Shotgun Critic

Post-credits food-for-thought is a rarity in most films these days, and that it should come in the wrapper of a totally engrossing thriller is some kind of wonderful.

October 9, 2012 Full Review Source: Quickflix
Quickflix

Riseborough once again astounds with her ability to inhabit a character, with Owen also on cracking form as the agent under fire from all sides.

October 7, 2012 Full Review Source: The Sunday Age

...a slow burning and engrossing film that demonstrates the morally caustic nature of terrorism.

September 27, 2012 Full Review Source: The Aristocrat
The Aristocrat

Marsh's Shadow Dancer is a complex and beautifully realised Irish Troubles thriller of cerebral and psychological proportions.

September 9, 2012 Full Review Source: HeyUGuys

Like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, this thriller refuses to burst out into action mode, preferring to keep its thrills cerebral

September 4, 2012 Full Review Source: Contactmusic.com
Contactmusic.com

Marsh's film brilliantly evokes the fearful, morbid undercurrent to Belfast in the last years of the conflict - a place where life and death could pivot on a wrong answer.

August 31, 2012 Full Review Source: The Ooh Tray
The Ooh Tray

After the simple, lucid start, the film becomes a labyrinthine tale of cat and mouse, of deception and double cross, of betrayal and confused allegiances.

August 26, 2012 Full Review Source: Observer [UK]
Observer [UK]

Though reluctant to engage too closely with the still-controversial politics of dissent, Shadow Dancer works brilliantly as a displaced espionage drama.

August 24, 2012 Full Review Source: Irish Times
Irish Times

Man on Wire director James Marsh has come up with a thriller that's as taut as his earlier film, and whose protagonist is striving to pull off a balancing act that's no less perilous than his aerialist hero's high-wire stunts.

August 24, 2012 Full Review Source: Movie Talk
Movie Talk

Even the marvelous performances by Owen and the on-the-rise Riseborough are not enough to ratchet up the drama to the level of the totally gripping -- a damn shame and something of a puzzler...

August 24, 2012 Full Review Source: Flick Filosopher
Flick Filosopher

A thriller needs to thrill, and this one doesn't.

August 23, 2012 Full Review Source: Daily Mail [UK]
Daily Mail [UK]

Director James Marsh is an award-winning documentary film-maker and he brings some finely honed observational skills to this tale.

August 23, 2012 Full Review Source: Daily Express
Daily Express

This is Rolls-Royce genre entertainment. Hard-hitting, thought-provoking, tense, memorable.

August 23, 2012 Full Review Source: Little White Lies
Little White Lies

Audience Reviews for Shadow Dancer

'Shadow Dancer'. A solid thriller centred around sacrifice, set against the bleakness of the IRA. Andrea Riseborough captivates all the way.
October 28, 2012
c0up
c0up  

Super Reviewer

The latest film from James Marsh (one of the most promising directors working today in my opinion) is not one for the average moviegoer. Like one of my favourites of last year, ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'', it requires a lot of patience and is slow-burning. I found ''Shadow Dancer'' to be tense throughout, wonderfully acted and well directed by Marsh.
February 10, 2012
Liam Gadd

Super Reviewer

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