Sarandon’s compelling performance persuasively illustrates how out of her element Helen comes to feel. However, the pacing becomes stagnant as the film wallows in repetitive scenes of bureaucratic confrontation rather than strong character development.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 24, 2024

Hollywood vet Susan Sarandon, building on her resume of quirky independent films, returns with a powerful story of a mother desperate to save a son held for ransom in an Islamic state.

| Jun 12, 2020

Despite Sarandon's good work, VIPER is a misfire that does not serve its worthy subject well.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 18, 2019

Viper Room is sincere and well-meaning enough in theory, but lacking any recognizable spark of life, it just comes across as an increasingly hollow and manipulative drag.

| Feb 7, 2019

Maryam Keshavarz was the perfect person to direct this film as she approaches it from a vantage point we never have a chance to see - a woman and a mother's point of view.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 6, 2019

The cast, comprising good actors from Sarandon to Edie Falco to St. Louis-native Matt Bomer, might have elevated the performances above the words on the page. They do not.

| Nov 20, 2018

The drama is earnest and well-meaning, but it never generates the emotional wallop it aims for; even the conclusion, which should be shattering, falls short.

| Original Score: C+ | Nov 9, 2018

Rather than construct an emotional tether to a faraway war, Viper Club instead focuses on a poorly conceived character and her martyrdom. How dull.

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

The film features solid performances by Sarandon, Matt Bomer, and Edie Falco but stops just short of making an emotional connection with the audience.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 7, 2018

For the most part, we sit with Helen, tortured as she is and wishing something more would happen.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 5, 2018

Cynics may feel that Viper Club is a contrived, Lifetime 온라인카지노추천 movie dressed up as Oscar bait, but this affecting drama is classier than that. Keshavarz is balances the heavy emotions without overwhelming the characters or the audience.

| Nov 2, 2018

Susan Sarandon knows how to pick a character; it's her taste in scripts that we need worry about.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 2, 2018

There's just enough to make the film a cut above your average headline-driven drama and not quite enough to shoot it into the stratosphere.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 2, 2018

Susan Sarandon again plays a long-suffering woman named Helen. But for all the important subject matter of Viper Killer, the filmmakers are too focused on Helen's personality and suffering, and leave by the wayside plot cohesiveness and consistency

| Original Score: C- | Nov 2, 2018

Led largely on the heels of Susan Sarandon's performance as Helen Sterling, Viper Club falls short of reaching its fullest potential.

| Nov 2, 2018

There's a lack of momentum to Viper Club that undermines how dire, how time-sensitive, and how high-stakes this situation is.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 1, 2018

There are a number of interesting things going on in "Viper Club." Unfortunately, too few of them are happening on screen.

| Original Score: C | Nov 1, 2018

Viper Club doesn't build enough high-voltage tension around political questions connected to a journalist's disappearance, but Sarandon gives the movie plenty of ground-level humanity.

| Nov 1, 2018

Incredibly unfocused and strangely impersonal, relying almost entirely on hackneyed visions, dreams and flashbacks to forge any kind of emotional connection with the audience.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 1, 2018

Sarandon's impressive performance as a dedicated ER nurse whose son is missing ends up being another notch on her way to becoming the 'mother of all film moms.'"

| Oct 31, 2018