An example of when a good concept with good actors and good performances doesn't ignite for some reason.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 28, 2020

The movie is, in any case, very enjoyable, while personally and visually very energetic. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 6, 2019

Where the film's first half is stirring, fascinating and charming, its final acts are laborious, maudlin and comically depressing.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 17, 2019

A film that brings together elements of a thriller and the romantic melodrama. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 5, 2019

There are stupendous performances, but what intended to be an unexpected story winds up being fatal for the film. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 3, 2019

Racer and the Jailbird is overly long and overly melodramatic... But the pivotal heist scenes are exciting and Schoenaerts and Exarchopoulos have terrific chemistry.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 13, 2019

Don't be fooled by the title, this isn't a bouncy 70s-style comedy. Tonally it's a mixed bag, and the last act doesn't work. I came out as much bemused as deflated. The performances keep it watchable, along with a big set-piece action scene.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 9, 2018

It's a stylish thriller packed with energy and exuberance.

| Oct 31, 2018

Its spectacular fast-revving plot is suddenly wrenched into a seemingly endless, unfocussed, lower and more serious gear.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 27, 2018

It's been a long while since I've seen a film start so promisingly before so spectacularly crashing and burning by the time it crosses the finish line.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Aug 24, 2018

Racer and the Jailbird is an unabashedly personal work... Roskam's "everything but the kitchen sink" approach is, more often than not, beautifully melancholic and deeply moving.

| Aug 20, 2018

If the movie had made their characters proper equals, it could have been something great.

| Aug 8, 2018

The characters are too generic to power a good love story and the plot's big unhappy turn is so arbitrary that you wonder if the writers had a list of options and made a random pick.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 23, 2018

What ought to have been a sleek romantic heist movie is soon overcomplicated by a dizzying number of plot developments.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 23, 2018

The two leads are excellent, and though the film stalls a little in the second half, there are some good heist scenes.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 13, 2018

The filmmaking grows ever limper and less urgent, climbing down gears to leave the engine idling at many of the moments when it really needs to accelerate.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 13, 2018

Frankly, it is a bit of a mess.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 13, 2018

Just as the film appears to be on the brink of ignition...it suddenly reaches way beyond the abilities of the Flemish director and co-writer Michael R. Roskam and becomes an odd, lumbering melodrama.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 13, 2018

A car crash. And not the Cronenberg kind.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 11, 2018

Whilst far from an outright disaster, Racer and the Jailbird fails to satisfy on any level: its female lead is a passenger, its romance is lacklustre and, as a thriller, it's desperately short on engine power.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 9, 2018