While some critics have described the film as "ugly," both literally and figuratively, there's a cruel beauty to [Pablo] Larraín's assured direction, the Super 16 cinematography (blown up to 35mm), and occasional, disorienting out-of-focus shot...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 17, 2023

It's not an easy watch but it's an intriguing look at an unlikeable protagonist.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 2, 2022

Pablo Larraín's second film, 'Tony Manero', has a start as energetic as a dancer's legs, but on the way it slides until it is sown on the ground. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 3, 2020

The fear and confusion that state of affairs caused amongst everyday Chileans is shown through Peralta's depravity and sinister criminal turn.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 4, 2018

This film is not a joy, and there is no joy in it, but it is powerfully grotesque and it will linger, whether you want it to or not. Give it a go, if you feel brave enough.

| Aug 29, 2018

As played by Alfredo Castro, Ral Peralta is one of the most disturbing and intractably unsympathetic figures in recent cinema.

| Jul 6, 2018

Superbly paced, deftly acted and pervaded with satirical wit, Tony Manero is full of a dangerous, manic energy that comes directly from its main character, a man capable of dazzling gestures and a remarkable self-control in spite of his confusion.

| Sep 27, 2017

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

(Alfredo) Castro plays the part with a dead-eyed blankness, a hollow, terrifying character who is as repellent as he is fascinating.

| Jun 11, 2010

| Original Score: 0/5 | Jan 14, 2010

Alfredo Castro is magnetically repellant in the lead, a soulful creep with desperation and a very specific form of madness seeping out of his pores.

| Original Score: B | Oct 9, 2009

Larrain's (literally) dark, edgy movie is a precise artistic commentary on Augusto Pinochet's miserable regime, which was 
under way while Travolta gyrated.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 22, 2009

Larrain evokes the bleakness and oppressiveness of life in a police state with much subtlety even as he poses a much larger question about cultural imperialism.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 20, 2009

Larrain's consciously raw execution in telling the story of a compelling but ultimately unsavory character is an id-bending exercise in provocation that's both competent and challenging.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 10, 2009

Could this be ... art?

| Original Score: 5/10 | Jul 6, 2009

Shot with a hand-held camera and presented in a fragmented scenario, Tony Manero is the director's compelling attempt to find parallels between the Pinochet reign of terror and Ral's scruple-less antics.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 3, 2009

A memorably claustrophobic evocation of its time and place, as well as a reminder that the so-called escape offered by pop culture can sometimes be an escape into soul-sucking madness.

| Jul 3, 2009

More than an indelible portrait of a sociopath with the soul of a zombie, Tony Manero is an extremely dark meditation on borrowed cultural identity.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 3, 2009

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 3, 2009

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 3, 2009