Lucas neatly evokes an LA world he knows all too well, where beautiful people live in glass houses, virtual private museums, catch-basins for the collective wisdom of Western Civilization, wisdom its current owners seem blithely clueless about.

| May 7, 2020

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 7, 2007

An absorbing, fascinating film, but disturbing and a little grim.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 8, 2007

Sound silly? Well, it is, plus pass (as so many techno-concerned conceits soon become), self-indulgent and nihilistically nasty in tone.

| Mar 1, 2007

finds it difficult to infuse humanity into a character who essentially functions as a dramatic device

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 20, 2006

Lucas' use of chat rooms as a plot-moving device is pretty hackneyed, and when the story takes a thriller-like turn in the third act, it feels really forced.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 17, 2006

The Dying Gaul has the tight, nailed-down structure of a good play. But it's the actors who really lift the movie above the shortcomings of its plot.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 7, 2006

Verbally well-matched, morally ambiguously fascinating together, they are exciting to watch.* All three leads give extraordinary performances.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 23, 2005

Almost every time Gaul threatens to be overwhelmed by its maudlin tendencies and need to be 'about' something, it's rescued by its delicious sense of cruelty.

| Dec 17, 2005

It's his heavy-handed and often ludicrous plotting that is the film's downfall.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 16, 2005

The one thing Greek tragedy shouldn't desperately want is any kind of catharsis.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 15, 2005

Campbell Scott, Peter Sarsgaard and Patricia Clarkson fill the disconcerting material with measured, subtle performances that bring home what's not being said.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 6, 2005

The film plays for keeps: It hurts and it doesn't back away from messy questions about art, commerce and conscience.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 6, 2005

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 6, 2005

By the end of the film, relationships have turned so corrosive that the characters leave an ugly aftertaste in the mind of the viewer.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Dec 6, 2005

Has neither hero nor villain, only humans. Beyond imperfect, they are complicated thinkers, lovers, dreamers, and performers.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 6, 2005

Lucas has a smaller knife, and its edge dulls.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 2, 2005

The movie always feels as if it's on the verge of a major discovery. It ends without convincing us that any such discovery has been made.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Dec 2, 2005

The Dying Gaul begins with a Herman Melville quote: 'Woe to him who seeks to please rather than appall.' Let them serve not as words of wisdom, but of warning.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 2, 2005

sex, lies, and screenwriters. Add in guilt, retribution, seduction, massive quantities of manipulation and you get a juicy twisted love story.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 28, 2005