Jordan Riefe

Jordan Riefe
Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications: Boston Phoenix, Guardian, Hollywood Reporter, L.A. Weekly, The Deadbolt, Celebuzz, Truthdig

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
57% The Hunt (2020) The ending only underscores the film's overall deficiency: a lack of imagination. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 13, 2020
89% 1917 (2020) It is an unusual epic told in a unique way that manages to engage even as it struggles to become more than just a cinematic exercise. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2019
82% The Report (2019) The result is a feature film crying out to be a documentary. Even so, bravo to Amazon, Burns and his cast for recognizing the importance of the story and delivering it in a format that gives it greater visibility. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 15, 2019
92% The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) A soulful paean to unfortunate times of great fortune in a great city, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a story from the sidelines, told with truth and beauty. Jordan Riefe. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 7, 2019
92% Cold War (Zimna wojna) (2018) By downplaying the romance and not accompanying each embrace with a swelling saxophone, Pawlikowski paradoxically makes Cold War even more romantic. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2019
73% On the Basis of Sex (2019) It's an epic legal life. Someone should make a movie. Someone else. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 28, 2018
61% Vox Lux (2018) Vox Lux won't help Portman's career much, but a misstep for the right reasons is not something to deride. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 14, 2018
82% Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018) Informative and engrossing for the most part, "Fahrenheit 11/9" seems to be composed of various documentaries stitched together to form a single work. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 20, 2018
94% Kusama: Infinity (2018) A troubled and gifted artist, she remains impenetrable throughout Lenz's movie, which nonetheless ends on a hopeful note. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 10, 2018
28% Jobs (2013) So impressed with its subject that it leaves precious little time to explore the imperfect man behind the icon. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
85% End of Watch (2012) While Ayer and his cast demonstrate a thorough understanding of their subject, and their movie features realistic violence and casual callousness, End Of Watch doesn't really go anywhere. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
63% Mama (2013) While Mama is occasionally hamstrung by cliches, it is a stylish and effective ghost story that lives up to its promise, delivering spine-tingling scares. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
53% Promised Land (2013) Promised Land is a smart, character driven drama that takes an insightful look at a compelling environmental issue... But as the second act progresses, the movie begins to lose momentum. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
18% Parental Guidance (2012) A series of contrivances born of some unholy union between America's Funniest Home Videos and Leave it to Beaver. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
44% On the Road (2012) With On The Road, Salles creates a vivid portrait of youth and spirited abandon that probably won't resonate with everyone. But then again, the best movies seldom do. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
37% The Guilt Trip (2012) Rogen and Streisand share adequate chemistry but seldom seem like the real deal in Anne Fletcher's fourth movie... Under her direction, Streisand and Rogen look like a pair of actors saying jokes written for them by a comedy think tank. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
60% Hitchcock (2012) An occasionally enjoyable, though uneven look, at the making of Psycho... Hitchcock is most engaging when Hopkins and Mirren share the screen as a durable old couple straining under 33 years of marriage. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
89% Lincoln (2012) With a lavish and distinctive look, superb acting and artfully rendered material, it's difficult to call Lincoln anything but a grand success. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
77% Flight (2012) Performance and plane crash aside, in a climate of fewer and fewer quality mainstream movies, Flight looks like a winner simply by not being terrible. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
83% Seven Psychopaths (2012) Seven Psychopaths unspools with clever ease and buffoonish charm. It is effortlessly brilliant and always accessible but more important, it slavishly satisfies the first rule of comedy - make 'em laugh. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
96% Argo (2012) Tonal issues aside, however, Affleck's third feature is assured, smart and very entertaining. - Celebuzz EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 21, 2018
77% Algorithms (2014) Visually arresting as it is, the pic stands out mainly for its subject matter, the first documentary on blind chess, even though it fits snugly within the sub-genre of underdog stories. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 20, 2018
69% Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) Obviously fans are happy to keep revisiting the bellowing Wookiee and the warp-speed dashes through the wide beyond, and satisfying as it is, Solo gives them what they want: more of the same. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 20, 2018
67% The Seagull (2018) As entertaining and as lovingly crafted as it is, it fails to transcend. - L.A. Weekly EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 20, 2018
91% Crazy Rich Asians (2018) Chu and his writers find a delicate cultural balance that makes his characters universally familiar without forsaking Asian aspects of the story. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 15, 2018
96% BlacKkKlansman (2018) BlacKkKlansman has everything anyone would want from a cop movie, but its candid treatment of its subject matter and the conversation it might inspire are the telegram that audiences deserve. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 10, 2018
93% Sorry to Bother You (2018) Occasionally juvenile, heavy-handed and gimmicky, "Sorry to Bother You" isn't perfect, but it's seldom at its worst. And at its best, it's an entertaining, jacked-up, hypnagogic hike into the darkest chasm between the 1 percent and the rest of us. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 5, 2018
61% The Young Karl Marx (Le jeune Karl Marx) (2018) The elevated work of the cast is attributable to fine acting, but also to Peck's direction as he sidesteps some of the material's flaws. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 26, 2018
92% The Other Side of Hope (Toivon tuolla puolen) (2017) Although Kaurismäki might be accused of confusing passion with sentimentality, thereby avoiding it like the plague, the result is a unique movie on an urgent topic told without urgency. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 20, 2017
88% The Post (2018) But while it proudly displays its anti-Trump bona fides, it fails as resistance cinema, stirring the kind of soft fury one might expect from mollified Beverly Hills baby boomers. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 7, 2017
84% Darkest Hour (2017) A history lesson for many and an acting clinic for most, Darkest Hour features an outstanding cast and inspirational themes, some of the elements of good cinema. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 29, 2017
28% Suburbicon (2017) When it works, it's outstanding. And when it doesn't, it's good enough. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 1, 2017
85% Battle of the Sexes (2017) Without sermonizing, "Battle of the Sexes" speaks to issues that are sadly all too contemporary, but it does so in a way that is entertaining, thoughtful and emotionally engaging, making it a worthy entry in the Oscar race. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2017
90% The Force (2017) The result is a fly-on-the-wall documentary that offers surprisingly little insight. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 28, 2017
100% Strong Island (2017) Strong Island is an example of how the justice system routinely fails people of color. But more important, his film examines the impact of that failure on families and communities. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 21, 2017
98% Whose Streets? (2017) Activist Sabaah Folayan and St. Louis artist Damon Davis tell a story the mainstream media mostly neglected. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 16, 2017
79% An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power (2017) Of course, polar caps continue to melt, and more work needs to be done, but An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, flawed as it is, helps bring awareness to a new generation. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 7, 2017
93% Endless Poetry (Poesía Sin Fin) (2017) If Endless Poetry sounds episodic and a bit nutty, it is, delightfully so, and actually tamer than Jodorowsky's earlier works, sharing with them triumphant glimmer and a casual, unpretentious surrealism. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 20, 2017
100% Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS (2017) Junger and Quested organize the multisourced material in a straightforward chronology, tracing a complicated conflict with roots in the Arab Spring. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 29, 2017
71% The Commune (Kollektivet) (2017) The Commune is grounded in gritty acting at the core of an otherwise drawn-out melodrama. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted May 25, 2017
99% Truman (2017) Gay avoids heart-tugging claptrap by aiming for-and achieving-emotional veracity throughout, a rarity in popular cinema. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 20, 2017
96% The Salesman (Forushande) (2017) Farhadi is a master of his craft, a nuanced chronicler of the human condition, whose work unfailingly offers moments of truth and beauty. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 1, 2017
93% Neruda (2016) A clever, playful and, yes, poetic accounting of the literary icon's run for his life from his home country of Chile. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 21, 2016
94% Newtown (2016) Newtown is emotionally active, moving us in ways facts and figures never could. - Truthdig EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 24, 2016
36% Misery Loves Comedy (2014) What might have turned out to be a movie about comedy only for comedians is instead a funny and engaging look at the most twisted and naked branch of the entertainment world. - Hollywood Reporter EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 17, 2015
4/5 66% Trash (2015) With its heavy plotting, Trash hardly aspires to docudrama, yet the trio paint an indelible portrait of youth in crisis that is essential to the movie's success. - Guardian EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 20, 2014
3/4 41% Dead Man Down (2013) [A] bleak film noir that values character over tension. - Boston Phoenix EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 7, 2013
2.5/4 57% Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) Oz the Great and Powerful isn't great, nor is it powerful, but it is competent and entertaining. - Boston Phoenix EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 7, 2013
2/4 35% Escape From Planet Earth (2013) This might please young kids but torment discerning parents. - Boston Phoenix EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 15, 2013
2/4 14% A Good Day To Die Hard (2013) A Good Day To Die Hard is a movie for people who like blowin' stuff up, evidently a favorite pastime of director John Moore, whose action scenes make about as much sense as his script, which was likely written on a cocktail napkin. - Boston Phoenix EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 14, 2013