Heart, humor and hilarity. . .and a big hunting knife! It's great to be "mental" if it means loving Mental!

| Nov 27, 2019

[Mental] sees Hogan once again utilizing his madcap zaniness and over the top flourishes to explore otherwise serious and emotionally heavy motifs.

| Aug 9, 2019

There are unusual rewards for viewers willing to climb ev'ry mountain with this deranged guide.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 27, 2017

This outrageously irreverent Aussie comedy is an extraordinary film - hilarious one moment and grating the next. Unfortunately, only some of the risks pay off here.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 11, 2017

The heart of Hogan's film is in the right place, and Collette is masterful as an agent of anarchy.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 18, 2013

The humour is every bit as rude and raucous as before, but Hogan's touch here seems heavy handed and the use of songs from The Sound of Music doesn't work nearly so well as the joyous Abba tunes that drove Muriel's Wedding.

| Apr 2, 2013

There are some big laughs and fine performances, yet not enough realistic grounding in the characters or story to sustain its dramatic transition in the second half.

| Mar 29, 2013

Given the film's garrulous multitude of characters, one wishes they would all just shut up and sing.

| Original Score: .5/4 | Mar 29, 2013

The scenery Down Under looks great and you certainly can't write off a film where Liev Schreiber plays a shark hunter.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 29, 2013

Enjoyable performances can't compensate for the film's lack of control: in Hogan's hands the broad humor sells out the sincerity, and when that mark is missed, we end up at twee.

| Original Score: C+ | Mar 28, 2013

Writer-director P.J. Hogan may have based "Mental" on an actual incident from his childhood, but the crazy quilt of a movie that resulted feels anything but real.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 28, 2013

"Mental" wildly overplays the kookiness and quirk.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 28, 2013

Not content to make his point through sharp-tongued comedy, Hogan ends up beating a dead horse -- or shark, as the case may be.

| Original Score: C+ | Mar 28, 2013

A lot of times, you simply want the jabbering characters to shut up.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 28, 2013

Hilarious but a tonal bucking bronco, the effort is perhaps best reserved for viewers in the mood for a runaway mine cart viewing experience, willing to absorb all the chaos Hogan happily provides.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 28, 2013

A kooky comedy in which a spirited cast is almost suffocated by too-aggressive direction.

| Mar 28, 2013

Mental skewers the easy-on and -off labels of psychiatry, but some sequences, particularly one of "bad dreams," are sophomoric.

| Mar 28, 2013

If one wants to see Toni Collette light a fart on fire, well, this misguided reunion with her Muriel's Wedding director may be the only chance they get.

| Original Score: C- | Mar 27, 2013

It's a bewilderingly strange movie, the kind of thing that one might write off as being lost in translation from its Australian origin before realizing it wasn't that funny there either.

| Original Score: 2.5/5.0 | Mar 27, 2013

Artistic inspiration can be close to madness, but Mental is just plain nuts.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 26, 2013