The all-American duo of Carradine and Keitel is rather incongruous in this decidedly European production, but the actors acquit themselves well enough.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 10, 2024

Scott's film is a success. It is also something of an oddity.

| Nov 21, 2023

Rarely have I seen a movie so drenched in persuasive style and ambience soar so brilliantly above its trappings to emerge as a first-rate, captivating entertainment.

| Nov 21, 2023

The Duellists is that cinema rarity -- a superbly-acted adventure epic boasting an intelligent script and marvellous photography of setting which seem to have been painted by Old Masters.

| Nov 21, 2023

[Ridley Scott's] strength is visual and his genius is economy. The Duellists is said to have cost well under $2 million, but it has every millimeter the same feeling of period that Barry Lyndon had with more pace and vitality.

| Nov 21, 2023

If it is sometimes irritating and occasionally hollow, The Duellists remains a very viewable achievement.

| Nov 21, 2023

The story might have worked if there was an undercurrent of attractiveness to Keitel's loutish character. But he is an unwavering boor from start to finish, and his prowess with weapons is in no way redeeming.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 21, 2023

Keith Carradine finally proves he can act in his most demanding role yet, while Harvey Keitel struggles manfully against gross miscasting, but there can be no electricity while they strain to keep up with their parts.

| Nov 21, 2023

Scott's images are true to Conrad's sentiments; they have a supernal glow. Their blend of immediacy and romance must be unparalleled in filmed historical fiction.

| Nov 21, 2023

The film's strength is in its quietness. It never tries to barnstorm or swashbuckle its way through a story that could so easily look as if it had leaped from the pages of Classics Illustrated.

| Nov 21, 2023

The Duellists translates the narrative into meticulous images, and makes a serviceable adventure yarn out of it. What is basnet is the irony of Conrad's telling.

| Nov 21, 2023

The fact is, we never know what motivates them. They're like robots whose futile clanging eventually becomes an absurd, exasperating, comical exercise.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 21, 2023

Though the film suffers from a sluggish narrative, it is well-played and visually brilliant -- beautifully composed and stunningly photographed -- and a must for film lovers.

| Nov 21, 2023

It is unfortunate, in view of all this talent, and beauty, that The Duellists doesn't add up to more than it does.

| Nov 21, 2023

It is really the record of an ungovernable physical obsession but what gives it its distinction is that it is directed with a real feeling for pictorial effect and for the play of light.

| Nov 21, 2023

A respectable effort at a low-budget period drama marred by deficiencies in the acting and the script.

| Nov 21, 2023

The movie is not for all. It is not an action packed drama, it is not funny. But it is a deeply satisfying film.

| Nov 21, 2023

What we have here is a beautifully-mounted nothing about "the code of honor" during the Napoleonic era -- a cade that invariably inspires a dramatically-empty movie.

| Nov 21, 2023

Scott has some finely sensitive ideas, along the lines of allusiveness and meaningful restraint, but Keitel and Carradine cannot give him the right vocal and psychic tone and timbre for the portrayal.

| Nov 21, 2023

It would be nice to think that The Duellists could build its own "cult" audience.

| Nov 20, 2023