| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 30, 2006

Potter's gaze into the man's dark sexual and familial secrets isn't about one man's oppression, but about his self-imposed melodrama.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 17, 2004

Perpetually feels as if it were a good idea that was never fully thought through.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 7, 2003

... it is just a little bit too much of a disjointed mess.

Full Review | Nov 17, 2003

When I saw it at Sundance, my attention was divided because I was trying to process the meaning of the jagged structure. Seeing it again a week ago, knowing what to expect, I found it a more moving experience.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 14, 2003

The Singing Detective has to settle for a hung jury.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 14, 2003

It stands completely on Downey's tragi-comic performance, although the rest of the cast -- particularly Penn and Gibson -- do good work as well.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Nov 13, 2003

Although the miniseries spent time developing the strands of the interwoven stories, the movie flits from idea to idea and plays like a chaotic, failed experiment.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 13, 2003

If the movie doesn't really work, it's because it's a hard piece to bring off, an extremely high mark to hit. Still, enough magic is left, especially in Downey's performance, to shock and beguile us.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 13, 2003

Even with its faults, Gordon's The Singing Detective will haunt the darkest corners of your mind long after the curtain falls.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 11, 2003

Fans of the classic Dennis Potter BBC miniseries: Stay far, far away from this pale, Americanized imitation.

| Nov 8, 2003

Apart from Downey's convincing contribution, the movie feels too contrived, stagy and inorganic to draw any pleasure.

Full Review | Nov 7, 2003

It's the kind of movie that was made in the spirit of 'Why not?' and will leave most viewers simply asking, 'Why?'

Full Review | Nov 7, 2003

While the general contours of Potter's original story are intact, they've lost all their transitional graces.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 7, 2003

It just doesn't work; not as an adaptation of the acclaimed 1980s British television series, nor as a stand-alone movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 7, 2003

The movie makes its point and still has another hour to go.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 7, 2003

Everything works in the beginning, in fact, but the movie spins out of control toward the end.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Nov 7, 2003

Without the breathing spaces allowed by the long-form, gone are the slow and developing rhythms of the original, its depth of characterization, and its refusal to sentimentalize a really vicious protagonist.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 7, 2003

The new Singing Detective mirrors Potter's growth as well as his originality, and moving from television to silver screen feels like a rewarding round trip.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 7, 2003

True, Gordon is working from Potter's own adapted script, but it's hard to shake the sense that the writer may simply have been trolling for a Hollywood paycheck.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 7, 2003