Average Rating: 4/10
Reviews Counted: 57
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 46
With random characters and a preposterous plot, this bizarre thriller might leave you with your mouth hanging open in disbelief.
Average Rating: 3.6/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 19
With random characters and a preposterous plot, this bizarre thriller might leave you with your mouth hanging open in disbelief.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.9/5
User Ratings: 64,006
A late-career change of heart leads to a dangerous life on the run for two seasoned assassins whose complex relationship masks a dark past in director Lee Daniels' pulpy film noir. When Mickey (Cuba Gooding Jr.) was just a child, his abusive father savagely murdered the young boy's mother shortly before being gunned down by Rose (Helen Mirren), Mickey's stepmother. Twenty years later, Mickey and Rose are not only working together as hired killers, but they have grown to become lovers as well.
Sep 9, 2005 Wide
Nov 7, 2006
$0.3M
Freestyle Releasing
All Critics (60) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (13) | Rotten (47) | DVD (7)
Thumbs down to a movie of such vile and violent temper.
Gosh, it's almost too bad/good to be true.
The one thing I'll say about Shadowboxer is that it's never boring. Of course, I could also say that about stepping on crushed glass.
It tells a story that would fit perfectly in a standard Hollywood action thriller, but it tells it in the grammar and syntax of an art film. The two sensibilities make no sense together.
Arresting performances by Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr. are squandered on a moody thriller that has way too much mood and not nearly enough thrills.
The movie at heart is just a wallow in ugliness and unpleasantness in the service of nothing.
Aaron Spelling may be slapping his forehead, but a few cemetary plots over, 1950's melodrama king Douglas Sirk is smiling.
The raw materials for a gutsy, gritty, fearless, fascinating thriller are here, but they amount to some intriguing individual parts and not a satisfying, cohesive whole.
This cat-and-mouse caper's Swiss cheese plotline is riddled with too many holes to consider this flick as much more than a snuff film.
Despite assembling a talented cast and crew, Daniels is stymied here by a script that takes itself far too seriously.
That most wonderful of films, the kind that works on every level, but can't be easily pigeonholed.
Mirren and Gooding are interesting -- and sexy -- to watch together. Once she leaves the film, the picture loses a bit of its uniqueness.
that most wonderful of films, the kind that works on every level, but can't be easily pigeonholed
Though generally well-acted, it is rendered by director Lee Daniels with such stifling pretension and aggressive weirdness that it becomes an unintentional art-film parody.
The script can't quite get a grasp on character depth, yet it also can't quite deliver the cheap thrills such a trashy tale might otherwise provide.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Mo'Nique as lovers? Now we've seen everything.
"Shadowboxer" is supposed to be concerned with how parents' lifestyles can be passed down to their children, but that is too simplistic here. The film, instead, is more a showcase of naked bodies, gory scenarios and over-the-top performances.
It's all so cliched in terms of personalities and full of such unbelievable situations that it's often downright laughable. And not in a good way.
There's no glee here, just a handful of glum characters stuck in an unending cycle of sex, violence, and heavy-handed preaching.
Much of the movie is just too unintentionally goofy to take at face value
The title [is] an apt metaphor for the movie, which ultimately bobs and weaves a lot but ends up all empty air.
Two hired assassins help raise their mark's daughter while being pursued by her sociopath boyfriend.Lee Daniels's, the director behind Precious, debut is an attempt at a thriller, but it's in the guise of an art film with all of the pretension and none of the art. There are long sequences during which the actors emote
October 2, 2011
Super Reviewer
Helen Mirren, Cuba Gooding Jr., Vanessa Ferlito A mother and her stepson have a romantic relationship while working as contract killers, but soon they learn there is someone trying to hunt them down. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I actually don't know how to explain this movie. It was
August 7, 2009
Super Reviewer
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