[John Cassavetes] undercuts his own abilities with a passionate belief in non-structured cinema, meandering story lines, poor camerawork and overindulgent acting styles.

| Nov 18, 2019

It's a movie about a testy, outsider artist and his gang of misfit collaborators, the John Cassavetes biopic once removed.

| Apr 4, 2019

The genre elements are mostly subterfuge because otherwise [Cassavetes would] basically be bleeding on the screen.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 16, 2019

Gazzara exudes cool and calm while also stinking of panic.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 4, 2019

In Mr. Sophistication, Meade Roberts, a screenwriter Cassavetes tapped to act, created an unforgettable figure.

| Nov 29, 2018

This was [John] Cassavetes' gift. As challenging as his films can be, he found humanity in gangsters and villains as well as in regular guys.

| Aug 31, 2018

This was Cassavetes' attempt to make a film with more commercial elements, but the melding of a conventional narrative with his own abstract musings doesn't completely work.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 18, 2014

When Cassavetes is really cooking, even the moments that are awkward and forced can become electric.

| May 3, 2013

With a heavily improvised script Cassavetes gets the most from his actors, each giving emotive performances.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 3, 2013

John Cassavetes, who made much of his money performing in action films, put that experience to work as the director of this hard, brooding crime drama

| May 3, 2013

There's no cinematography credit, which suggests Cassavetes either added that hat to his writer-director wardrobe, or the real culprit left town ahead of the posse.

| Jul 7, 2010

This is my favorite John Cassavetes movie, perhaps because it's the most appealingly sleazy.

| May 15, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 29, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 25, 2008

Cassavetes' films can be annoying and enigmatic, but they are usually creative and interesting. Not so with this one.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 30, 2006

It's rather like a shaggy dog story operating inside a chase movie. Chinese Bookie is the more insouciant, involuted and unfathomable of the two; the curdled charm of Gazzara's lopsided grin has never been more to the point.

Full Review | Feb 9, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 28, 2005

Watching the film is like listening to someone use a lot of impressive words, the meanings of which are just wrong enough to keep you in a state of total confusion, but occasionally right enough to hold your attention. What is he trying to say?

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 9, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 27, 2004

Gazzara plays a strip-club owner committed to staging sad, unsexy, decidedly personal semi-nude musical revues.

Full Review | Nov 29, 2004