Jallikattu pauses in its dialogue scenes but stays lively, in part thanks to an extremely loud score from Prashant Pillai full of chanting and drums. It’s either energizing or numbing depending on your taste—for me, it was a real boost ...

| Dec 2, 2022

This is pulsating, timely moviemaking that manages to warn about human nature, greed and the dangers of an angry mob.

| Original Score: A- | Feb 3, 2021

Jallikattu is a unique and operatically violent movie. What the plot lacks in narrative cohesion, it certainly makes up for in startling image and thought.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 25, 2021

The film spans about a day and runs a mere 90-minutes, but in that time, it undergoes a stunning metamorphosis, from a naturalistic depiction of rural Kerala to a winking, expressionistic nightmare.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 24, 2021

Amorphous violence explodes in a darkly unsettling tale.

| Jan 22, 2021

I was not prepared for how mesmerizing this film in terms of the cinematic delivery of such a primal story.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 26, 2020

The film pulsates with an infectious, unrelenting energy that is both exhausting and exhilarating, enervating yet invigorating.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 2, 2020

Lijo Jose Pellissery's strikingly visceral descent into primal madness

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 23, 2020

Politics runs like a thread through Jallikattu, but the film's intentions are never overt. Even if you watch it simply as a kinetic, exhilarating piece of cinema, it would be a memorably immersive experience.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 16, 2020

Less of an 'animal attack' movie, and more of an 'animal trying to get the hell away from people for obvious reasons' movie.

| Jun 29, 2020

There are visuals here that you will not be able to get out of your head. This film is only 90 minutes and you're not going to be able to look away.

| May 18, 2020

It's a simple story drawn from life but elevated by its engaging screenplay that is raw and realistic.

| Feb 19, 2020

Every minute of this work of great absurdity is infused with so many surprises that you're already planning to watch it again. The film is the answer to those who doubted Pellissery's auteur status.

| Dec 23, 2019

The challenge for the audience is to simply keep up. Jallikattu is such sensory overload - containing so many crowded images and rhythmic cuts - that we almost need a little distance to fully appreciate what the filmmakers have pulled off.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 5, 2019

Keralan director Lijo Jose Pellissery takes to his hometown for Jalikattu, a buffalo-on-the-run bloodbath that functions as both a gentle probing of tradition and a rancorous take-down of masculinity.

| Oct 5, 2019

Consider the idiom "bull in a china shop" put on notice, while "buffalo in an Indian village" waits, hoofs stomping, in the wings.

| Oct 4, 2019

At times almost an abstract collage of image and sound, the film's opening both sets the scene and ramps up the energy to a level which rarely flags.

| Oct 4, 2019

It's not a perfect movie, but it is a very interesting one. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Oct 3, 2019

Jallikattu is alluring, unconscionable, and impossible to avert your eyes from - whether you're engaged with it or hating every second.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 29, 2019

The brilliance of Jallikattu is the coexistence of its diametrically opposing natures. It has a simple story, but it's excruciatingly complex in execution. It's rural, but still crowded with people. Most of all, it's both beautiful and violent.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 24, 2019